•EKTKAND  SMITH-* 

BOOK  STORE 
CACHES  OF  BOOK3- 

•39   MAIN   ST. 

9NONNATI.  OHM 


REGRET  OF  SPRING 


A  LOVE  EPISODE 


BY 

PITTS    HARRISON    BURT 


NEW     YORK 
G.    W.    Dillinghaui    Co.,    Publishers 

MDCCCXCVIII 

[All  rights  reserved] 


CoPYRIGHt,   l8q8,   BV 

G.  W.  DILLINGHAM  CO. 


REGRET   OF   SPUING 


The  decorations  for  this  book  were 
drawn  by  Mr.  Artus  Van  Briggle  of  the 
Rookwood  Potter}',  several  of  them 
from  Tanagra  Statuettes.  The  vases, 
made  at  the  Pottery,  are  after  designs 
by  the  author. 


1711131 


CONTENTS 

MOONLIGHT  PAGE 

I.  Elizabeth      ...  9 

II.  The  Idol       ...  33 

DARKNESS 

I.  The  Undertone    .         .  69 

II.  The  Shrine  ...  89 

III.  The  Apology        .         .  99 

DAWN 

I.  Fires    .         .         .         .  117 

II.  Hope    .                            .  135 

III.  The  Broken  Reed         .  147 

IV.  The  Ring     ...  155 

V.  The  Vision  .         .         .  169 

VI.  The  Clay      .         .         .181 

VII.  Life      ....  191 

DAYLIGHT 

I.  The  Bucket  Shop          .  197 

II.  Her  Creed    .         .         .  223 

III.  The  Prodigal  Son          .  233 

IV.  Regret          .         .         .  243 


"Evil  is  the  vulgar  lover  who  loves  the  body 
rather  than  the  soul,  and  who  is  inconstant  because 
he  is  a  lover  of  the  inconstant ;  and  therefore 
when  the  bloom  of  youth  which  he  was  desiring 
is  over  he  takes  wings  and  flies  away,  in  spite 
of  all  his  words  and  promises ;  whereas  the  love 
of  the  noble  mind,  which  is  in  union  with  the  un- 
changeable, is  everlasting." 

*  *  *  * 

"  Love  is  only  birth  in  beauty  whether  of  body 
or  soul." — SYMPOSIUM. 


REGRET  OF  SPRING 


MOONLIGHT 


I.— ELIZABETH 

A  HOT,  enervating  day  in  later  May  had 
closed  as  I  sat  by  a  window  of  a  house  in 
the  interior.  In  our  latitude  the  warm, 
soft,  dewless  hours,  till  long  past  midnight, 
are  spent  in  lightless  rooms,  on  piazzas, 
9 


R£GRE7^    OF   SPRING 

in  street  walks,  or  under  the  stars  ;  given  to 
gossip,  thoughtful  talk,  or  silence  broken 
by  the  sound  of  fluttering  fans,  laughter, 
and  voices  murmuring  in  the  dark. 

The  daffodil  tints  of  the  higher  sky 
were  changing  to  the  red  of  guinea  gold 
as  I  looked  across  the  room.  There,  oppo- 
site me,  at  a  window  similar  to  mine,  sat  an 
erect,  handsome  woman,  no  longer  young. 
A  strong  sense  of  the  beauty  in  her  face, 
flushing  as  it  faded  towards  its  golden 
twilight,  allured,  entranced  me.  I  was  en- 
ticed anew  by  a  spiritual  vivacity,  dimmed 
by  the  haze  of  years,  which  yet  shone  over 
the  lines  of  age  and  pain.  She  was  still 
vigorous  in  her  pose,  and  her  mind  was 
youthful,  as  I  well  knew.  The  marks  and 
color  of  her  years  were  not  falsely  hidden, 
or  disguised  by  art,  rather  accentuated  and 
pushed  forward,  as  if  to  serve  the  part  of  a 

screen. 

10 


MOONLIGHT 

A  refined  and  delicate  expression,  more 
beautiful  in  some  ways  than  the  lovely 
flush  of  youth,  came  and  went  among  the 
wrinkles  about  her  eyes  and  across  her 
brow.  It  seemed  to  glide  away  into  a 
mass  of  wavy  gray  hair,  like  an  inner 
voice  which  sought  an  utterance. 

The  rigid  parting  of  the  hair,  carefully 
smoothed  by  a  long-gone  convention, 
showed  her  reserve  and  reticence.  The 
lawn  fichu  over  her  shoulders  and  a  plain 
black  silk  dress  gave  her  the  air  of  a  Puri- 
tan. A  sense  of  masterful  restraint  was 
relieved  by  the  gayety  and  brilliancy  of 
her  brown  eyes,  that  were  still  bright. 
She  seemed  in  manner  and  dress  and  ways 
to  assume  age  as  a  mask,  yet  the  actual  years 
were  there.  She  suggested,  rather  than 
the  matron,  the  nun,  ignorant  of  the  pith 
and  toil  of  life.  You  felt  that  in  her  com- 
pany there  would  be  delight  and  respect. 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

But  one  blinks  the  lackings  of  a  woman, 
one  takes  the  impression  her  manners  give, 
and  the  feeling  her  tones  impart :  exasper- 
ated by  a  pretense  of  girlishness  ;  charmed 
by  culture,  sympathy,  and  womanliness, 
and  even  coquetry,  for  that  has  no  age  and 
always  lends  a  flavor. 

Her  ways  and  movements  were  high 
bred,  her  tone  exclusive.  Her  manner 
plain  and  direct,  although  sweet;  and  her 
refusal  to  allow  intrusion  or  to  seek  confi- 
dence, gained  for  her  a  place  apart  from 
the  world  and  from  me. 

I,  a  grizzled  old  bachelor,  upon  whom 
generations  of  maidens  had  sharpened  their 
arts,  and  still  flattered  by  that  ever-chang- 
ing "prime  of  life,"  looked  at  this  wo- 
man, as  I  had  done  for  years,  with  a 
bowed  head  and  a  deep  faith.  The  saf- 
fron light  meanwhile  streamed  through  her 
window,  shedding  a  veil,  as  it  were,  which 


MOONLIGHT 

hid  her  the  more  from  my  sight  and 
reach. 

The  house  capped  a  hill  in  the  suburbs  ; 
the  back  lot  we  overlooked  was  a  forgot- 
ten, half-wild  bit  of  old  orchard.  It  was  a 
garden  of  the  past,  carpeted  with  blue- 
bottles, jonquils,  dandelions.  Each  tree 
or  shrub,  lilac,  wistaria,  snowball,  precious 
as  it  was  from  its  rarity,  was  more  precious 
from  the  tone  of  age.  The  fruit  trees 
were  relics  like  ourselves,  that  once  a  year 
put  on  the  blush  of  maidenhood,  to  deck 
gray  trunks  and  hide  black  scars,  but 
whose  withered  fruit  no  one  would  care 
to  pluck. 

Spring  had  come  suddenly,  like  the  arc- 
tic spring,  when  apple  laps  peach  with  its 
bloom,  almost  in  a  day. 

From  close  beside  us,  an  irregular  cres- 
cent of  pear  trees  circled  down  the  hillside, 
below  our  window  to  the  left ;  a  vanguard 
13 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

of  apples  farther  down  to  the  right.  A 
sturdy  bartlett  pear  tree  leaned  almost 
against  us,  and  with  its  outer  arms  clasped 
a  jargonelle,  not  so  strong  or  high. 

They  seemed  an  old  couple  on  the 
downward,  rainless  side  of  life.  Farther 
and  farther  on,  others  shone,  each  a  dis- 
tinct massive  figure  in  the  shade,  until 
their  lines  blurred  in  a  whitish  cloud — 
billows  of  blooms  on  which  we  seemed  to 
float.  In  full  blossom  all  the  sunny  day, 
the  flowers  had  been  turned  to  a  faint 
golden  tint,  which  made  their  tone  more 
sympathetic,  and  less  cold  than  the  dead 
white — more  human. 

The  joy  of  youth,  the  desire  once  again 
to  live,  to  cry  in  praise  of  beauty — alone 
the  fire  of  all  things  born — seemed  to  come 
from  throats  of  this  myriad  of  flowers,  in- 
audible, yet  strong  as  the  light  of  love  in 
the  eyes  that  greet. 

14 


MOONLIGHT 

Soon,  a  full  yellow  moon,  radiant  and 
languorous,  slowly  rising  through  the 
smoky,  dusty  air,  faded  the  rose  tints  of 
the  sky,  and  changed  the  atmosphere  of 
feeling.  Later  it  shone  from  a  steel-blue 
heaven,  on  these  blossom-draped  figures,  so 
warm  in  tone  that  their  color  became  like 
old  ivory,  and  the  limbs  and  branches  age- 
black  carvings  and  traceries. 

Faint  mist  wreaths — incense  of  the  festi- 
val— rose  and  floated  in  gossamer-like  folds 
about  the  trunks  of  the  trees,  and,  at  times, 
above  their  forms,  adding,  by  their  mo- 
tion, a  feeling  of  life  and  rhythm.  The 
flowers'  perfume  seemed  wafted  to  me  like 
music  on  these  waves,  and  after  a  time  to 
grow  poignant  as  the  pathos  of  "  Che 
Faro," — to  have  a  meaning  of  sad  regret — 
a  voice  of  imagined  spirits. 

All  fear,  all  pain  over  lost  opportunity, 
or  lack  of  appreciation,  were  like  a  far-off 
15 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

sea,  that  only  murmured  a  discontent. 
My  dead  loves,  joys  of  the  past,  seemed 
to  live,  to  thrill  my  soul.  It  was  but 
a  gnarled,  grim,  worn-out  trunk,  trying 
anew  to  put  forth  blossoms. 

My  companion,  under  the  same  intoxi- 
cating influence,  vainly  tried  to  fight  its 
sway  with  ideas  on  the  philosophy  of  liv- 
ing, words  to  amuse  the  man,  which  I  did 
not  heed,  nor  even  hear ;  until  she,  too, 
was  swept  away.  But  with  the  womanish 
instinct  for  her  prison  house  of  convention- 
ality, she  again  broke  the  silence  : 

"  Beauty,"  she  said,  as  if  repeating  her 
creed,  "  the  worship  of  beauty  moves  the 
world.  It  is  the  essence  of  all  good. 
Without  this  thirst  there  would  have  been 
no  Egypt,  no  Greece,  no  Italy,  no  France 
— nothing  but  Africa ;  "  and  she  sighed,  as 
if  all  that  was  worth  living  for,  had  been 

blotted  out. 

16 


MOONLIGHT 

11  You  crush  religion  under  foot  like  a 
beetle,"  I  replied  with  some  heat.  "  You 
forget  how  religion  has  routed  savagery 
from  the  world." 

"  Yes,  it  has  taught  us  to  put  on  clothes 
— to  mask  the  animal  a  little." 

"  No  !  Through  the  mind  and  heart, 
religion  has  lifted  man." 

"James,  what  a  Puritan  you  are;  how 
blind  to  the  core  of  religion;"  and  she 
laughed  quietly  to  appease  my  wrath. 
"  Spiritual  beauty,  the  heart  of  man  must 
know  to  live,  and  there  he  worships  until 
the  slime  of  the  serpent  destroys  the 
beauty.  Dogma  to  degeneracy  is  the 
course — Jupiter  or  Buddha." 

Parrot  chatter  of  two  old  people,  sit- 
ting in  the  gloom  of  day  and  life, 
thinking  that  experience  might  teach  hap- 
piness. 

"  And  love  ?  "  I  asked,  more  to  myself 
17 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

than  of  her — wandering  in  feeling  and 
thought  to  that  garden  of  paradise. 

She  made  no  reply,  but  even  in  the  light 
of  the  night  I  saw  her  large  eyes  glow  and 
seemingly  give  out  a  gleam  of  fire,  a  signal 
that  she  too  could  follow  on  the  same  voy- 
age of  memory.  The  shadows  cloaked  our 
bodies,  and  in  the  dark  sea,  present  ties, 
pains,  ills  and  age  seemed  to  sink,  and  our 
minds  and  hearts  were  stirred  to  youth. 

I  said :  "  Sometimes  I  think  vanity 
greater  than  religion  or  love,  as  if  vanity 
caused  love— /t  does  almost  all  else." 

"  Hunger  and  love  keep  and  create  mere 
life.  You  can  remain  a  brute,  but  love 
will  lift  you  to  see  loveliness,  to  be  sweet, 
and  there's  your  happiness,"  she  replied, 
answering  in  the  quick  tones  of  conviction 
—irritating. 

"  But   you,    unmarried — of    course   you 

could  not  deeply  know  of  love." 

18 


MOONLIGHT 

It  was  a  rude  speech,  cruel  in  many  ways, 
yet  not  meant  so.  For  what  woman  con- 
fesses, even  i  n  her  prayers,  that  she  does  not 
know  the  height  and  depth  of  love  ?  They 
always  love  ;  if  not  the  real,  then  the  ideal. 

"  Ah  !  "  came  from  her  with  the  round 
volume  of  an  organ  tone,  and  a  flavor  of 
coquetry,  yet  low  and  far  off,  touched  by 
irony,  and  as  if  the  spirits  without  spoke 
through  her  voice.  There  was  no  reproach, 
but  more  of  pity,  when  she  said  :  "  That 
is  always  your  material,  half  view.  You, 
who  seem  to  me  to  have  murdered  the  bet- 
ter part  of  love,  and  always  to  see  it  from 
the  man  side." 

"  Shall  I  join  the  college  women  who 
aim  at  a  neuter  sex?  " 

A  young  woman's  laugh  of  innocence, 
pleasure,  and  banter,  which  blew  away  all 
sense  of  the  years  of  her  past  life,  rippled 
from  her. 

19 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"  Ah  !  "  I  answered,  wheeling  from  the 
warm  south  wind  which  came  through  the 
window,  and  the  beauty  of  the  blossoms,  as 
an  arrow  of  feeling  she  had  sent  ran 
through  me.  I  sat  upright.  "  Was  spring 
indeed  come  again?"  I  thought. 

"  Elizabeth,"  I  asked  with  a  smile, 
"  were  you  blonde  or  brunette?  "  ready  to 
make  peace  or  far  more.  But  the  power 
of  youth  in  this  sword-thrust  was  weak ; 
the  very  question  showed  the  shaky  wrist — 
the  long-forgotten  practice  at  the  fence; 
the  feeling  had  lost  its  strength. 

In  her  dignified  fascinating  presence  you 
would  not  have  thought  of  her  figure,  nor 
felt  the  lack  of  curve  and  swell,  where  color 
had  shone  or  charm  enthralled;  whether 
she  had  been  light  or  dark.  Somehow  her 
character  and  expression — she  was  still  a  wo- 
man— lifted  her  above  these  facts.  Often  I 
had  wondered  over  the  why  and  wherefore. 


MOONLIGHT 

"  Black — red  and  black,  like  a  black- 
heart  cherry,  '  Good  enough  to  eat,'  he 
used  to  say ; ' '  and  she  softly  laughed 
again,  as  if  it  were  to  him  she  was  speak- 
ing. 

"  You  are  lovely.  Old  and  young  fairly 
worship  you.  Who  was  he?" 

"  Forget,"  she  said  gravely;  "  let  it  be 
hidden  in  your  memory  by  those  flowers, 
that  are  so  white,  so  like  a  death  sheet." 

I  felt  myself  blush  as  if  I  had  intruded 
where  she  knelt.  Jxmg  and  intimately  as 
I  had  known  her,  yet  never  before  had  I 
dared  to  approach  her  inner  life  so  nearly. 
It  was  not  idle  curiosity  nor  even  sympathy 
that  now  drove  me  on  ;  but  the  search  for 
truth  and  for  the  secret  of  her  content. 

"  Trust  me,"  I  said,  softly. 

The  quiver  of  blossoms  and  the  silvery 
mist  seemed  a  veil  shutting  off  ordinary 

affairs  and  conventions.     If  ever  a  heart 
21 


REGRET   OF  SPRING 

could  open  to  a  friend's,  now  must  that 
door  unclose. 

"  It  is  nothing,"  she  replied  more 
sternly,  raising  her  mental  mask,  which 
had  partly  fallen,  "  a  mere  speck  or  trifle 
in  the  mass  of  life;  not  even  strange." 

"  Confess.  It  is  due  me.  What  was 
your  shipwreck?  What  has  buoyed  you  so 
sweetly  through  a  hard  life?"  I  asked,  as 
a  priest  might  of  a  penitent. 

"Wait " 

She  gazed  steadily  into  the  pale,  sapphire 
night.  I  studied  her  high-bred  profile, 
sharply  edged  by  the  reflected  light;  finely 
cut,  not  by  heredity  or  accident  of  har- 
mony alone,  but  by  her  own  will  and  soul. 

"You  were  not  born  in  the  West,  I 
know." 

At  this,  she  began  quietly  to  talk. 
"  You  remember  Rockfield,  that  bleak 
town  on  the  bleak  hills  of  Massachusetts, 


MOONLIGHT 

where  hearts  harden  into  sympathy  with 
the  stony  soil,  and  pleasures  of  the  senses, 
from  the  sterile  environment,  become  sins? 
I  was  born  in  that  atmosphere." 

That  was  the  foundation  stone  she  wanted 
well  laid,  for  she  waited  there  for  a  time. 

Then  she  went  on  :  "If  there  was  no 
taste  there  or  culture,  there  was  hard  work 
and  hard  thinking,  which  are  rare  grind- 
stones for  the  will  and  character.  You, 
who  grew  up  in  this  semi-tropical  Ohio 
valley,  have  been  too  softened  by  your  nur- 
ture, and  suffer  for  it  now,  and  have  suf- 
fered all  your  life.  The  other  is  a  hard 
taskmaster,  but  the  fruit,  when  it  ripens, 
is  noble  in  kind  and  quality.  Our  corn  is 
sweeter  than  yours  ;  our  apples  have  a  flavor 
of  which  you  are  ignorant.  Yet  for  a  wo- 
man, the  climate  and  life  are  often  bitter, 
acting  like  frost  on  the  more  delicate  ten- 
drils of  her  nature." 

23 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  Yes,  I  remember  the  sweetness  and 
delicacy  of  those  pearly  gray  tones  of  the 
stone  fences  and  piles  of  rocks  :  the  quiet 
restraint  of  the  pastures  and  hills.  They 
are  far  finer  than  the  monotony  of  Holland. 
They  contain  more  touches  of  local  color. 
Then  the  greenish-black  broad  stroke,  for 
contrast,  of  the  street  of  elms  in  the  valley 
below,  with  a  bit  of  white  steeple  shooting 
out.  The  air  and  light  were  tonics." 

"  You  look  at  the  dress  of  everything. 
You  see  it  in  color,  as  if  it  were  to  be 
painted.  The  soul  escapes  your  Southern 
eyes.  Such  an  outlook  to  you  is  as  grate- 
ful as  ice  in  summer.  You  forget  the  lack 
of  life." 

"Self-devotion?" 

"Truth!" 

"  And  your  people,  were  they  of  the 
class  in  whom  self -martyrdom  mounts  to 

selfishness?"  I  asked. 
24 


MOONLIGHT 

"  Ah  !  It  was  the  cruel  complete  truth 
always  before  all  else  with  them." 

"Were  they  rich  or  poor?"  Unless 
led,  she  would  never  quit  speculation,  and 
tell  her  story. 

"  That  was  no  question,  there,"  she  re- 
plied, rather  sharply.  "  Wealth  was  not  a 
social  line.  Whether  one  was  orthodox  or 
Unitarian  was  the  black  line.  My  parents 
were  strictly  orthodox  and  had  the  old- 
school  doctor." 

"So,"  I  said,  "  that  accounts  for  your 
dignity  and  reserve."  The  jesting  tone 
which  covered  the  truth  did  not  ruffle  her. 

"  They  were  well-to-do  as  things  went, 
yet  they  were  bound  hand  and  foot  by  the 
hard  bonds  of  daily  life.  Spots  of  color 
come  back  to  me  now,  where  they  must 
have  put  the  stain  of  their  life  blood. 
Duty  was  their  master  and  ideal.  My 
mother  seemed  clothed  in  austerity  as  with 
25 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

a  nun's  garment,  and  her  life  stares  at  me 
with  an  expression  of  granite.  Yet  behind 
the  house  she  had  a  bit  of  special  garden — 
what  a  flame  and  fire  of  poppies  I  see  it ! 
Not  an  inch  unfilled.  An  orgy  of  color  !  " 

Again  she  halted  in  the  toilsome  road  : 
her  doubtful  steps  an  inheritance  from  her 
mother.  "  Why  it  all  was,  I  have  often 
sought,"  she  went  on,  speaking  as  much  to 
herself  as  to  me  :  "  whether  the  fault  which 
broke  the  chain  came  from  them." 

"  And  your  father?  "  I  asked. 

"  My  father,"  she  replied  in  a  brisker 
tone,  "  was  a  stalwart,  high-headed,  dark 
man,  tender  of  others.  New  England  the- 
ology planted  a  thorn  in  his  heart.  He, 
too,  lifted  his  eyes  like  a  monk  to  imagi- 
nary beauty  beyond  the  grave.  It  was 
simply  the  surroundings  which  covered  his 
nature  with  a  black  pall." 

"  You  are  like  your  father  in  looks  and 
26 


MOONLIGHT 

temperament.  I  feel  him  speak  in  the 
sympathy  you  show." 

"  A  violet  to  a  pansy,"  and  she  laughed 
scornfully.  The  sound  of  her  voice  seemed 
to  give  relief  to  a  long-pent  pain  and 
pride.  "  He  was  a  beautiful  man.  I 
promised  to  be  fine  looking — was  a  little 
until — '  A  pause  came  in  her  words,  and 
she  seemed  to  be  gazing  at  some  youthful, 
handsome  lover  with  a  rapture  that  had 
grown  in  her  mind  through  the  years,  to 
whom  no  test  of  life  or  time  had  come 
to  tarnish  the  color  of  his  cheek  or  dim  his 
eyes. 

The  far-off  bassoon-like  notes  of  the 
night  one  felt  to  be  an  echo  to  her  passion- 
ate tones,  and  after  a  while  softened  the 
pangs  of  her  heart,  for  she  went  on  as  if 
that  chapter  in  her  life  was  closed,  and  the 
visions  before  her  now  were  more  pleasing. 

"  George  was  handsome,"  she  said  in- 

2? 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

tensely ;  "  he  was  a  blond.  He  looked  as 
you  imagine  a  Norseman,  bold  and  daring, 
ready  to  fight  any  dragon.  It  was  his 
race,  not  his  nature.  You  won't  care  to 
know  his  last  name?  I  have  never  spoken 
it  in  all  these  long  weary  years." 

There  might  have  been  tears  on  her 
cheeks  ;  I  could  not  see.  They  moistened 
and  vibrated  through  her  voice,  without 
breaking  it.  "  His  was  the  next  house  to 
ours.  We  grew  up  together;  were  school- 
mates, friends,  then  lovers.  We  shared 
the  various  passions  of  youth,  from  wild 
flowers  to  Emerson.  I  talked  and  he  list- 
ened. Must  I  tell  you  all?  Must  you 
know  the  details,  so  that  hereafter  you  will 
never  again  look  down  on  me  in  that  doubt- 
ful, compassionate  way,  and  ask  '  Love* 
too?' — full  of  sorrow  that  I  have  never 
known  what  love  is?  " 

Then  she  proudly  raised  her  head  away 
28 


MOONLIGHT 

from  the  pear-tree  blossoms,  as  if  she  no 
longer  needed  their  cloak  of  sympathy. 
The  gentle  lady,  who  had  always  shown  a 
peculiar  deference,  delicacy,  and  grace  in 
her  quiet,  subdued  life,  became  queenly  in 
pose  and  dignity. 

"  George,  I  know,  would  never  have 
loved  me  had  I  not  been  comely,"  she 
said,  wandering  again  to  fields  of  ama- 
ranth. "  Long  before  that  time  he  was  a 
god  to  me — sunshine,  air,  life  itself.  I 
watched  always  but  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
him  when  he  left  his  house — a  sweet  joy. 
All  my  waking  hours  were  full  of  thoughts 
of  him,  as  if  it  were  the  breath  of  my  body  : 
his  heart,  not  mine,  beating  in  me.  I 
must  have  made  him  love  me.  Now  I  can 
see  it.  His  love  was  only  a  reflection  from 
the  great  fire  which  burned  in  my  soul. 
The  fault  may  be  there  ;  he  is  not  guilty." 

"  There  is  no  guilt  or  fault  in  love,"   I 
29 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

said.  "True,  like  all  great  passions,  it 
may  go  mad  at  times,  and  the  penalty  of 
broken  social  laws  may  make  a  canker  in 
the  heart." 

"Never,  James;  it  is  never  love  that 
goes  mad  !  "  A  glow  of  purity  dyed  her 
face. 

"  Love  is  separate  and  single — our 
own,"  I  went  on.  "Whether  the  image 
we  adore  be  clay  or  steel,  it  matters  not, 
if  we  only  see  the  passion  and  not  the 
object." 

"  Yes,  he  loved  me  as  the  snow  warms 
the  earth  with  its  clean,  cold  mantle : 
while  I  burned  towards  him  like  the  sun  of 
the  tropics.  The  snow  melted  away, — 
though  hidden  by  gray  ashes  the  coals  of 
fire  are  still  alive." 

She  leaned  back  in  her  deep  chair,  half 
reclining,  and  with  upturned  face  full  of 
a  rapturous  repose.  Now  the  core  and 
30 


MOONLIGHT 

course  of  her  story  had  been  told,  the  facts 
were  of  poor  consequence  and  might  be  of 
any  type.  They  were  of  no  moment  to 
her  :  to  me,  as  sweet  and  indefinite  as  scent 
and  savor  of  the  pear  blossoms. 

"  You  leave  the  mystery  deeper  than 
ever,"  I  said  rather  harshly. 

She  sat  up,  holding  the  arms  of  the 
chair,  and  sharply  looked  at  me,  with  an 
attitude  of  defiance  :  then  sank  back  and 
laughed  pleasantly,  and  I  knew  the  game 
was  won. 


II.— THE   IDOL 


"THE  truth  was,"  she 
said  calmly,  "  George's 
people  were  fair- haired 
folks,  of  a  different  type 
and  character  from  ours, 
distinct  almost  as  white 
and  black.  They 
were  regarded  as 
aliens  in  our  remote, 
primitive,  English- 
settled  town.  They 
were  careless  in  their  ways  and  habits, 
thoughtless  of  the  many  severities  of  pride 
and  the  hardships  which  we  suffered.  They 
neither  believed  in  the  Trinity,  nor  re- 
turned borrowed  things ;  would  receive  as 
freely  and  willingly  as  they  gave.  Gay- 
33 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

hearted  and  laughter-loving,  life  was  to 
them  a  pastime  and  not  a  penance.  The 
traits  of  a  roving  race,  which  generations 
had  not  worn  away,  were  still  in  their 
kind-hearted,  sympathetic  natures.  I  tell 
you  all  this,  that  you  may  try  to  under- 
stand, and  not  judge  with  the  hard  justice 
of  men.  But  you  will  never  see  his  side, 
never  have  a  sense  of  his  freedom  and  ease 
of  living,  nor  of  his  charm.  My  parents 
were  displeased  by  my  devotion  to  him, 
and  spoke  scornfully  of  his  lack  of  quali- 
ties they  held  to  be  supreme.  For  all  that, 
he  was  what  they  called  '  likely,'  and  as 
'  well-to-do  '  as  we  were.  The  training 
and  discipline  I  had  ever  with  me,  my  self- 
reliance  and  independence,  caused  me  to 
care  but  little  for  what  they  thought  or 
said.  I  loved  him,  that  was  enough.  Yes, 
they  too  felt  this  law  and  power.  He  was 
a  giant  almost  in  size.  You  will  smile, 
34 


MOONLIGHT 

maybe,  when  I  tell  you  that  this  wavy- 
haired,  blue-eyed,  sweet-smiling  monster 
used  to  pick  me  up  unawares,  holding  me 
as  a  child  in  his  arms,  and  kiss  me,  before 
my  force  of  will  or  words  could  reach  him, 
and  make  him  respect  my  dignity."  She 
was  half  ashamed,  yet,  the  barrier  now 
down,  still  proud  to  have  me  know  the 
manner  and  look  of  the  man  who  had  loved 
her. 

"  He  seems  to  have  been  a  well-favored, 
fine-looking  man,"  I  said,  as  one  would 
speak  of  a  horse.  "  Had  he  any  mind  to 
match  yours?  Was  there  in  him  any  emo- 
tional sense  above  the  eating  and  drinking 
phase  of  life?  For  indeed  I  cannot  see 
you  or  imagine  you  inflamed  by  a  love 
which  was  not  largely  spiritual." 

"  Oh,  you  are  at  fault,  James.  He 
could  learn  when  he  chose,  or  when  I 
willed  he  should.  He  was  a  dreamless 
35 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

haunter  of  the  woods,  a  fisherman,  a  man 
of  the  past,  primeval,  out  of  his  period — 
yet  a  master  man.  His  mind  was  good, 
without  the  will  power  to  keep  step  to  our 
shrill  fifes." 

"  I  see  :  you  blazed  the  track  in  study. 
He  was  like  a  child  to  you." 

"  Yes.  He  was  never  out  of  my  mind 
nor  off  my  heart.  My  pride  was  in  him, 
not  in  myself." 

"  After  school,  how  was  it?  " 

"Well,"— and  she  hesitated—"!  sent 
him  to  college.  It  was  I  that  urged  him 
and  insisted  he  must  go.  He  would  have 
been  content  to  live  on,  happy  as  we  were. 
There  comes  in  my  responsibility  for  all 
the  future.  It  need  not  have  been.  There 
was  but  little  ready  money.  I  begged  of 
his  friends — even  my  father  helped." 

"  And  you  more  than  all.  You,  I  do 
not  doubt,  worked  and  slaved  for  him ;  you 
36 


MOONLIGHT 

pleaded  with  the  old  folks,  flattered  them 
into  pride  over  George,  to  make  the  sacri- 
fice for  his  sake.  You  need  not  say  it — I 
know  what  you  must  have  done." 

"I  did.  Before  he  was  through,  and 
when  his  needs  became  more  urgent,  I  took 
in  tailor's  sewing  to  aid  him.  No,  I  do 
not  blush.  As  I  live,  nothing,  looking 
back,  seems  more  delicious  than  the  work 
I  did  for  George.  I  gave  myself,  body 
and  soul.  What  could  make  me  happier  ? 
Over  the  needle,  my  love  grew  into  chan- 
nels it  has  never  left;  grew  so  deep,  its 
wells  have  never  ceased  to  give  the  waters 
of  life.  Think  of  it.  A  worship  of  beauty 
and  an  unselfish  love.  Whoever  takes  these 
into  her  heart  is  blest,  as  with  the  dews  of 
the  desert." 

The  shadows  had  moved,  and  she  was 
more  clearly  in  the  light.  She  looked  far 
younger  and  more  beautiful,  as  she  sat 
37 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

erect  with  her  hands  clasped.  The  night 
wind  rustled  the  tender  leaves ;  now  she 
half  reclined  again,  full  of  thought  rather 
than  her  emotion. 

"While  I  worked,"  she  went  on,  "  I  stud- 
ied so  as  to  keep  pace  with  him ;  to  be  his 
equal  in  mind,  if  not  in  body.  The  crutch 
I  had  been  I  did  not  know,  or  the  constant 
incentive.  So  eager  was  my  pursuit  of  an 
ideal  that  even  a  tinge  of  estrangement, 
which  I  felt,  did  not  check  my  madness. 
His  worry  over  his  examination,  his 
'  stand,'  which  kept  falling,  was  cause 
enough." 

"  Did  he  know  that  you  made  some  of 
the  money  he  spent  ?  If  he  did,  you  need 
say  no  more." 

"No,  no,"  she  cried,  "don't  mis- 
judge !  Be  just.  If  he  had  known,  and  I 
had  told  him  the  truth — to  take  it  from  me 
was  the  deepest  favor — he  was  manly  and 
38 


MOONLIGHT 

noble  enough  to  have  done  so.  He  was  no 
Turk,  no  counterfeit  cavalier.  It  was  a 
lethargy  of  the  brain,  a  visionary  straying 
after  strange  '  isms,'  not  any  meanness." 

"  But  that  should  have  made  no  differ- 
ence in  his  love  for  you.  You  were  con- 
stant," I  said,  slightingly. 

"It  was  my  fault.  I  loved  him  too 
much.  I  was  drunk  with  love's  red  wine," 
she  replied. 

"  How  old  was  he  ?     Boy  or  man  ?  " 

"  Twenty-two  in  years  :  thirty  in  many 
ways.  I  can  see  him  now,  home  for  his 
first  spring  vacation,  his  yellow,  hatless 
head  above  the  row  of  green-tinted  lilacs 
which  hedged  the  path  to  our  door  porch. 
The  smell  or  sight  of  lilacs  always  brings 
him  back  to  me,  fresh  and  sparkling  like 
the  waters  of  a  brook.  The  ecstasy  of 
those  moments  of  his  approach  was  always 
intense,  yet  full  of  hope  and  joy,  until  I 
39 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

could  look  into  the  depths  of  those  blue 
eyes  and  feel  the  flush  of  his  fair  cheek. 
This  time  there  was  trouble,  and  doubt  in 
his  look.  I  exclaimed,  when  I  saw  this 
shadow  :  '  George,  what  is  it,  dear  ?  Tell 
me.  It  cannot  be  more  than  I  can  over- 
come.' 

"  '  'Beth,'  he  said,  with  despondency 
in  his  voice  and  manner,  '  I  have  gone 
wrong.' 

"  A  nervous  chill  gripped  my  heart. 
A  sudden  pang  or  blow-like  wound  in  my 
side  made  me  seem  to  turn  into  a  stone 
image,  changed  by  fear  or  death.  It  must 
have  been  some  far  instinct  in  my  soul 
which  was  aroused.  Strange  that  even  then 
I  gave  his  word  '  wrong'  its  basest  mean- 
ing. I  seized  his  arm,  as  life  came  swell- 
ing back  to  me,  and  looked  through  his 
eyes  to  the  depth  of  his  very  being.  I 

seemed  then  to  be  able  to  search  his  soul, 
40 


MOONLIGHT 

so  great  was  my  love  and  unity  with  him. 
His  expression  and  lines  of  face  were  still 
like  a  babe's  in  beauty.  I  instantly  felt 
he  was  pure  and  true.  '  Out  with  it, 
George. '  And  I  smiled,  glad  that  it  was 
only  some  chance  or  accident,  and  no 
canker-worm  in  his  nature. 

"  '  Elizabeth,'  he  said  sadly,  '  the  pro- 
fessor has  told  me  I  cannot  pass.  My 
whole  four  years  have  been  wasted.  I  have 
done  nothing,  nothing.' 

"  '  Nonsense,  George.  Tell  me  that  you 
love  me.  Love  me,  and  I  will  bear  you 
through.'  " 

"  And  you  carried  him  through  ?  "  I  in- 
terrupted. 

"No:  it  was  too  late.  I  tried,  but 
failed.  He  who  had  started  a  leader  in 
the  race  had  ended  last.  It  was  bitter  to 
me;  like  a  long  fever:  to  him,  a  simple 
ailment." 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  A  young  man  with  the  incentive  of 
love  cannot  be  without  ambition.  He 
must  do  his  work  for  her  sake  :  and,  at 
that  time,  the  tasks  there  were  trifling. 
Any  dullard  ought  to  have  taken  a  fair 
rank  with  ease.  Either  you  failed  to 
gauge  his  mind  or  he  was  not  in  love. 
Perhaps  the  cause  lay  at  the  feet  of  '  Quail,' 
at  the  door  of  rum,  or  on  the  table  with 
cards.  The  case  is  not  worth  a  smile, 
much  less  laughter.  Armies,  hosts  of 
youngsters,  by  their  ceaseless  feet,  have 
worn  a  canyon  down  that  untoward  way." 

She  drew  back  in  her  chair,  looked 
sternly  at  me  for  a  moment,  and  replied  : 
"  You  fail  to  grasp  the  base  fact,  the 
temperament  of  the  man.  You,  who  are 
so  active  and  nervous,  so  eager  to  push 
through  what  is  before  you,  taking  up  an 
affair  before  you  see  it  as  a  whole  or  half 
know  its  bearing,  cannot  understand. 
42 


MOONLIGHT 

George  cared  for  nature,  for  human  crea- 
tures, never  for  the  immoral  sports  of  men. 
The  studies  given  him,  the  duties  of  prayers 
or  recitation,  were  of  no  importance  in  his 
sight.  Other  things  absorbed  his  time  and 
mind.  He  simply  strayed  away  on  some 
jaunt  or  pastime  to  the  woods  or  the  sea. 
He  was  unmindful  of  that  which  a  nar- 
row, petty  nature  feels  is  everything,  in  a 
bellstroke  or  a  mark  of  good  behavior.  It 
was  only  neglect,  not  wickedness,  which 
'  broke  '  him.  He  lost  interest — he  lost 
heart.  All  the  high  hopes  were  gone. 
His  inner  life  grew  like  a  wild  flower, 
soon  over,  while  to  me  thought  and  mind 
were  only  opening.  So  George  came  back 
to  me,  handsome  still  and  with  the  same 
willing,  sweet  temper :  although  the  esteem 
of  those  about  us,  which  was  so  essential 
in  my  eyes,  all  vanished  into  silence." 
"  Lassitude,  complicated  with  nightly 
43 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

exercises  at  '  The  Woodcock,'  were  the 
canker-worms  on  '  stands '  in  old  Yale. 
Your  Buddha  seems  to  have  calmly  sat 
waiting  the  inevitable,"  I  said,  sarcastic- 
ally. 

"  If  my  faith  was  undimmed,  James,  you 
can  have  no  reason  to  carp.  There  was  a 
time  when  I  felt,  had  he  run  wild,  I  should 
have  been  glad.  It  was  not  his  failure,  it 
was  mine.  There  was  no  moral  wrong, 
merely  simple  unfitness,  inability.  He 
was  as  charming  and  willing  as  ever." 

"  Blind  devotion,  the  sainthood  of  wo- 
man," I  muttered. 

"  That  was  not  the  end,"  she  went  on, 
sorrowfully.  "  I  tried  again  to  lift  him 
into  ambition.  I  sent  him  to  New  York 
and  buoyed  him  up  to  study  law.  For  a 
time  it  was  as  much  as  I  could  do  to  keep 
him  there.  Then  a  new  tone  came  to  him. 
The  atmosphere  of  the  place,  or  what  you 
44 


MOONLIGHT 

will,  seemed  to  float  him  away,  as  an  in- 
coming tide  a  stranded  boat." 

"His  vanity,  very  likely;  the  admira- 
tion he  may  have  excited  was  stronger 
than  love  or  ambition." 

"  He  was  worthy  of  it.  His  beauty  and 
sweetness  and  manly  carriage  were  beyond 
words,"  she  said,  tensely  drawn  in  his 
defense.  "  A  Lohengrin  !  " 

"  Beauty — no  talisman  save  to  a  wo- 
man. ' ' 

"  But,  James,  he  was  so  thoughtful  and 
kindly  in  manner,"  she  said,  pleadingly. 

"Character?" 

"  Character.  He  had  the  power  to 
charm  a  bird,  much  more  a  woman  or  man. ' ' 

"  Success  shows." 

"  You  forget,  in  your  bookish  ways,  the 
strength  of  the  will  of  the  body,  and  can 
only  see  a  force  of  the  mind.     In  your 
eyes  Samson  had  no  will." 
45 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  The  '  Gates  of  Gaza '  did  not  save 
him.  He  was  shorn  by  a  woman." 

"  Condemn  me,  not  George.  I  broke 
the  spell,"  she  replied,  with  pain  in  her 
voice. 

"  He  was  a  hero.  The  feminine  in- 
stinct will  have  it  so,"  I  said  scornfully. 

She  moved  uneasily,  drew  up  her  screen 
of  manner,  and  said  in  a  forced  natural 
tone  :  "  See  how  much  of  the  radiance  has 
gone  from  the  blossoms;  a  gray,  misty 
smoke  drifts  over  them.  They  lose  the 
joyous,  youthful  expression  and  seem  to 
take  on  the  commonplace,  to  have  an  air 
of  regret."  Then  in  a  lighter  way  :  "You, 
James?  What  was  the  last  one's  name? 
Some  chit  to  whom  you  feigned  to  teach 
the  lore  of  love?  " 

"  Too  old  at  woman's  arts,  Elizabeth. 
I  am  not  to  be  diverted." 

Her  secrets,  like  yellowed,  faded  love- 
46 


MOONLIGHT 

letters,  locked  away  in  a  chest,  the  clasps 
and  bolts  rusty  with  years,  were  hard  to 
open.  Flattery,  cajolery,  entreaty,  scorn, 
had  alike  been  unfit  keys :  threats,  force 
must  be  used,  so  I  said  bitterly  : 

"Your  ideality  ruined  you.  New  Eng- 
land cobweb  theories — a  world  of  mind 
without  bones  or  blood,  striving  to  live  as 
saints  or  gods,  sent  him  forth  a  gladiator, 
'  Ave,  Caesar,  salutamus,'  his  cry." 

"  If  not  a  victor,  then  the  shades  !  "  she 
exclaimed. 

Her  voice  was  deep  and  earnest,  though 
not  loud.  Every  muscle  seemed  tense 
when,  sitting  upright  in  her  chair,  she 
pressed  her  hand  on  the  window-sill,  as 
if  she  had  reversed  the  thumb  for  death. 
Meanwhile  her  eyes,  glaring  at  me,  spoke 
of  her  strong  feeling  and  bitter  opposition 
to  any  compromise. 

I  looked  out  of  my  window ;  the  petals 
47 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

had  begun  to  fall ;  white  glints,  tear-like, 
they  silently  dropped  into  the  dark  ;  their 
day  was  gone.  Faint  treble  cries  of  chil- 
dren at  play  were  heard  from  the  far 
streets ;  rapid  wheels  of  the  rich  rattled  on 
the  road  below;  the  muffled  surge  of  the 
cathedral's  vesper  bell  welled  up,  per- 
meated the  air. 

Presently  she  said,  in  her  old,  half-sar- 
castic way ;  "  The  old  paradox  again  :  wo- 
man rules  the  world,  yet  always  wrong." 

And  I,  quick  to  answer :  "  The  wrong 
lies  in  the  course  they  would  have  us  steer, 
sinking  love  in  the  still  waters  of  affec- 
tion and  friendship." 

"The  struggle  of  mire  against  green 
pastures." 

"  As  you  will.     It  is  useless  to  argue." 

"  Hear,  then,  and  be  you  the  just  judge, ' ' 
she  said  solemnly. 

I  bowed  my  head  before  her  serious,  en- 
48 


MOONLIGHT 

treating  manner,  knowing  that  what  she 
would  now  say  she  had  never  spoken  be- 
fore. The  altar  where  she  had  prostrated 
her  heart  had  no  litany  of  tears  and  com- 
plaints. I  knew  from  her  life. 

"  Leave  the  Viking,  graded  to  a  gladia- 
tor, in  his  arena,  and  go  back  to  that  cin- 
der-heap in  the  rocky  hills,  its  deadly 
barren  life,  his  old  people,  my  parents, 
the  silent  scorn.  Walled  and  barred  in 
that  prison,  I  never  lost  my  faith  in  him, 
nor  my  love.  I  waited  season  after  sea- 
son, and  he  did  not  come  back.  It  seemed 
always  that  the  scent  of  the  lilacs  would 
call  him  home.  I  lost  grasp  of  him.  He 
faded  away  like  a  summer  cloud." 

"  Did  he  not  write  ?  " 

"  Of  course,  for  a  long  time  ;  but  noth- 
ing deceives  like  letters.     Words  are  idle 
for  truth.     It  is  the  manner  and  tone  that 
speak.     Finally  that  failed." 
49 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  And  no  one  told  you  !  " 

"  How  could  I  ask  or  listen?"  she  re- 
plied petulantly.  "James,  after  three 
years  of  patience — I  sent  for  him."  She 
spoke  slowly  and  in  a  lowered  voice,  as  if 
confessing  a  grave  sin. 

"He  was  lost  ?" 

"  No.  He  came.  I  had  bidden  and 
he  obeyed.  But  what  a  caricature  of  my 
noble,  ideal  man,  whose  heart  I  trusted, 
whose  nature  was  so  pure  and  sweet !  I 
thought  he  might  have  walked  unspotted 
in  the  wilds  of  Africa  or  among  the  sav- 
ages of  Paris." 

"  The  '  tramp  '  in  him  had  overmastered 
his  training.  No  doubt,  he  had  sought 
Nirvana  in  a  freedom  from  convention. 
Had  he  grown  coated  with  the  mud  of  the 
gutter  ?  ' ' 

"  Oh,  worse,"  she  exclaimed,  "  a  thou- 
sand times  worse.  He  was  dressed  like  a 
50 


MOONLIGHT 

lord :  a  duke  returning  to  the  peasants  of 
his  village,  could  have  had  no  different 
aspect.  The  gray-lichened  clapboards  of 
the  ruined  old  house  seemed  to  cry  out 
against  him  and  his  magnificence.  What 
did  I  care  for  dress  ?  Though  he  were 
clothed  in  purple  or  in  rags,  it  would  have 
been  the  same  to  me.  But  all  honesty, 
truth,  and  decency  were  gone  from  his  face. 
He  was  debased  in  his  soul.  I  knew  it  the 
moment  my  eyes  met  his.  If  he  had  been 
prosperous,  become  rich,  and  in  so  doing 
had  lost  his  love  for  me,  I  loved  him  so 
deeply  that  my  heart  would  have  said  '  yes  ' 
to  his  going. 

"  If  he  had  said,  '  I  love  another,'  I 
could  have  borne  it,  even  though  the  pang 
were  like  death.  Anything  but  dis- 
honor." 

"Ah,  true!"  I  interrupted,  excited  as 
I  was  by  the  intensity  of  her  expression. 
51 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  Saints  !  you  New  Englanders  would  all 
be  :  Saints  of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  only 
know  one  sin.  Your  church,  your  lives 
will  pardon  every  sin  in  the  decalogue  but 
that  one.  You  have  magnified  the  teach- 
ings of  an  early  doctrine,  and  bowed  down 
before  it,  untii  you  are  its  slaves." 

She  rose  from  her  chair  indignantly,  and 
proudly  stood  before  me ;  her  arm  out- 
stretched as  if  denouncing  a  culprit.  She 
seemed,  from  the  fire  of  her  action  and 
mood,  to  be  an  Abbess,  a  vestal  priestess, 
an  emblem  or  statue  of  purity.  All  the 
heredity  of  her  Puritan  race  was  at  bay, 
fierce  to  answer  the  charge.  She  made  no 
outcry  of  denial,  nor  did  she  speak  in  a 
loud  voice,  though  she  was  touched  to  the 
quick;  her  tones  deepened  and  strength- 
ened by  the  pathos  of  her  arraignment. 

"  My  life  should  be  an  answer  to  this 
slander.  How  can  you  have  such  thoughts, 
52 


MOONLIGHT 

remembering  your  mother?  Civilization  ! 
religion  means  that  restraint.  Once  that 
barrier  falls,  the  train  of  evil,  dishonesty, 
dishonor,  selfishness — all  that  makes  life 
debased,  unworthy — troops  through  the 
breach.  The  subject  is  without  my  pale, 
beneath  my  knowledge  or  interest.  To 
you,  the  physical  side  of  woman's  nature  is 
the  most  charming  and  precious.  You 
always  talk  of  it  and  discuss  it.  Your 
noisy  women  do  not  know  the  depths  of 
emotion  we  feel.  They  are  but  the  foam 
on  the  waves,  which  attracts  the  eye  and 
strikes  the  ear  with  its  turbulent  boom." 
Her  strong  conviction  of  the  truth  came 
rather  in  the  sharply  cut  intonation  and 
clear  articulation,  as  if  it  was  something 
holy  and  sacred.  Her  intensity  quickly 
died  down,  her  heart  and  brain  were  again 
controlled  by  her  memory  of  the  past. 
The  philosophy  of  life  became  to  her  a 
53 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

waste  of  words,  insight  of  that  lifted  grave- 
stone. She  paused,  hunting  in  her  mind 
for  the  thread  she  had  dropped ;  and  wear- 
ily sat  down.  I  did  not  dare  to  answer. 
She  spoke  again. 

"  I  knew  when  George  was  coming  home, 
when  he  must  come,  if  at  all.  Your  type 
of  woman  has  no  sense  of  the  storm  in  my 
being  then.  For  awhile  hope  dazzled  me, 
and  I  gave  up  my  imagination  to  its  deli- 
cious thrall ;  then  despair  gripped  me  as 
with  the  jaws  of  a  lion.  And  as  the  hour 
grew  nearer  and  nearer,  the  suspense 
seemed  worse  than  the  most  dread  cer- 
tainty, so  that  I  longed  for  the  trial  to  be 
over;  more,  it  seemed,  than  I  had  hun- 
gered for  the  love  I  so  feared  was  lost. 
Oh  !  I  was  beside  myself  with  passion,  and 
knew  not  what  I  did. 

"  Only  few  of  the  words  and  events  re- 
main burned  in  my  heart.  I  heard  his  step 
54 


MOONLIGHT 

on  the  board  walk,  and  as  the  stroke  of  his 
footfalls  grew  louder,  they  the  more  surely 
knelled  my  doom.  I  knew  instantly,  as  I 
know  now,  that  he  was  changed  to  me  and 
to  himself.  He  gave  the  old  call  we  had 
used  to  each  other  as  children,  and  as 
lovers — '  Way — Oh  ' — which  was  once  so 
full  of  expression.  It  told  to  each  the 
only  thing  worth  knowing.  Now  his  cry 
was  false — only  a  memory — not  a  living 
fire.  At  last  he  came  before  me,  and  at 
the  sight  of  me  seemed  to  be  given  a  new 
life,  for  he  hurried  forward  to  the  porch 
where  I  had  so  often  awaited  him.  Then 
it  was  I  saw  his  eyes,  and  knew  his  heart 
was  gone  from  me.  Ah  !  no,  not  gone. 
He  did  love  me.  He  still  loves  me." 

She  leaned  back  in  her  large  chair,  rest- 
ing her  head  on  its  back.     The  opening 
and  shutting  of  her  fingers  alone  told  of 
her  feelings.     There  were  no  tears,  no  out- 
55 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

cries,  yet  none  the  less  was  her  emotion  in- 
tense, as  she  realized  the  past.  She  saw 
her  lover  in  youth  and  purity,  before  a 
change  had  come  in  his  spiritual  life. 
Like  a  mother  who  never  forgets  her  dead 
child,  she,  a  woman,  did  not  cease  to 
mourn  her  lost  love. 

"  A  man  may  be  false  for  a  moment," 
she  went  on,  speaking  slowly,  to  regain 
self-control.  It  was  as  if  she  was  drawing 
a  curtain  over  the  pure,  early  period  of  her 
devotion :  or  waiting  until  the  memory 
was  gone  from  her  mind,  lest  she  sully  it 
with  that  which  followed.  "  I  am  not  too 
prudish  or  too  childish,  not  too  ignorant 
of  the  nature  of  men,  but  that  I  know  one 
fault  does  not  kill.  But  there  was  a  taint 
in  the  tones  of  his  voice.  A  lack  of  sin- 
cerity would  not  have  hurt  me  so  deeply, 
but  this  was  more.  I  cannot  explain  it — 

a  leprosy  of   the  soul.      I  was  so  unpre- 
56 


MOONLIGHT 

pared  for  this  mystery,  at  which  1  shud- 
dered;  something  in  his  whole  being  I 
could  not  understand." 

Then  she  stood,  and  walked  to  and  fro 
in  the  room ;  suddenly  turning  to  me,  she 
spoke  appealingly  and  in  defense  of  her- 
self, as  well  as  in  anger  against  her  lover. 

"  Before  I  could  speak  or  raise  my  hand, 
dazed  as  I  was,  he  had  clasped  me  round 
the  waist  and  drawn  me  violently  to  his 
breast.  His  arms  seemed  like  serpents 
about  my  body,  and  the  flame  in  him  a 
noxious  fire,  which  filled  me  with  loathing. 
It  was  not  me  he  sought.  He  tried  to  kiss 
me,  but  before  his  lips  touched  me,  I  had 
writhed  from  his  arms  !  '  Oh,  George,'  I 
cried  out  to  him — terrified,  as  I  was,  ard 
in  despair — '  My  love  !  Dear  heart ! 
What  is  this  madness  ?' — vainly  pleading 
to  the  image  of  a  dead  nobleness. 

"  '  Why,  Elizabeth,  what's  the  matter 
57 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

with  you  ? '  He  spoke  so  abruptly,  so 
roughly,  I  scarcely  knew  him.  His  voice 
was  full  of  a  new  meaning  that  filled  me 
with  fear,  as  if  he  were  a  brute  and  not 
human.  The  manly  quality,  the  earnest 
innocent  spirit  that  used  to  lift  me  as  by  a 
wind  of  gentleness  and  love,  was  utterly 
gone.  He  was  a  strange,  coarse  man  hid- 
ing behind  the  form  which  was  so  dear  to 
me,  and  from  whom  my  being  revolted. 
Yet  my  heart  protested  and  covered  me 
with  reproach.  His  presence,  the  sight  of 
him  awakened  in  my  being  a  feeling  of 
devotion  so  strong  as  to  drown  all  else. 
Then  I  looked  at  him  with  the  deepest  ap- 
peal of  my  nature  ;  words  would  not  come 
to  my  lips,  so  completely  was  I  given  up 
to  that  look  of  love. 

"  He   moved  his  hand  back  and  forth 
over  his  forehead,   as   if  to  drive  away  a 
pain   that   was  gathering    there.       '  What 
58 


MOONLIGHT 

makes  you  blush  so,  and  why  do  you  so 
rudely  push  me  off  ?  '  he  asked,  as  if  I  was 
denying  him  a  right. 

"  '  You  have  no  such  right.  Memory  of 
the  purity  of  our  love  should  defend  me  ! ' 
I  protested,  stepping  further  back  from 
him. 

"  '  Defend  you  '  ?  He  took  a  long  breath, 
and  raised  his  head  so  as  to  look  into  my 
face  and  eyes,  as  if  to  overawe  me. 

"  '  Do  you  come  here  to  confess  ?  Do 
you  wish  to  lay  down  the  evil  burden  of 
your  heart  ?  '  I  demanded. 

"  '  I  have  only  waited  for  you  to  call 
me.  I  am  here,  '  he  answered  sullenly. 

"  It  was  springtime  then  as  now,  and 
everything  seemed  willing  and  eager  to 
cast  the  old  skin  of  the  past,  to  break  into 
a  new  life,  forgetting  the  frost  of  the  win- 
ter, my  heart  more  than  all  nature.  Once 
the  words  had  passed  my  lips,  my  eyes  met 
59 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

his,  and  in  that  prolonged  gaze  into  each 
other's  soul  passed  the  answer,  the  en- 
treaty, the  refusal,  and  then  I  knew  all. 

"  A  cherry  tree,  smothered  in  a  snow- 
white  cloud,  was  the  background  of  the 
picture  I  saw ;  it  forced  the  ruddy  color  of 
his  cheeks,  the  tawny  mane  of  his  head, 
the  blue  of  his  eyes  into  vivid  relief.  This 
outer  semblance,  so  dear  to  me,  pulled  at  my 
heart,  prayed  for  a  hearing  in  his  defense, 
and  seemed  to  cry  for  mercy.  While  I 
stared  at  him,  the  joy  of  his  presence 
thrilled  through  me  like  breathing  another 
air,  so  intoxicating  was  its  power.  A  word 
from  him,  a  change  in  the  expression  about 
his  mouth,  anything  pure  and  of  the  past, 
would  have  carried  me  to  his  arms.  My 
heart  would  have  seized  a  victory  from  my 
soul  at  any  cost. 

"  He  who  had  been  fondled,  loved,  mas- 
tered, now,  mastiff-like,  showed  his  teeth : 
60 


MOONLIGHT 

'  You  have  always  domineered  over  me, 
ruled  me,'  he  said,  as  if  repeating  a  speech 
prepared  long  before,  without  impulse  or 
feeling  from  the  present;  'always  forced 
me  where  I  did  not  wish  to  go.  All  you 
told  me  to  do,  I  have  done,  and  everything 
failed.  Now  that  I  have  made  some  suc- 
cess, and  have  come  back  to  pay  you  for 
your  care,  to  keep  my  promise,  you  turn 
away  and  are  angry  with  me.' 

"'Pay  me'?  I  dwelt  long  in  saying 
these  words,  they  meant  so  much.  '  Love 
me,  George,  you  mean.  There  is  no  other 
pay  in  the  world  worth  a  farthing.' 

"  '  Yes,  pay  you,  if  there  is  any  question 
of  money ' 

"  My  sudden  gesture,  the  palm  of  my 
hand  raised  before  his  face,  stopped  him. 

"  A  woman's  divine  instinct  guided  my 
heart  and  bridled  my  wrath.  '  George,'  I 

said,  '  the  past  is  too  dear  to  me ;  leave  it 
61 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

unsullied;  leave  me  my  self-respect. 
Leave  me  the  sweet  memory  I  have  of  you. 
Go  back  at  once  that  no  one  may  see  you 
— that  no  one  may  speak  ill  of  you.' 

"  '  Of  course  I  love  you,'  he  said,  as  if 
it  was  drawn  from  him,  yet  in  a  softer  way. 
than  he  had  spoken ;  '  but  not  in  your 
bookish,  conventional  way.' 

"  '  Oh,  George  ! '  I  exclaimed  ;  '  there 
is  only  one  way  in  love.  It  is  never  pay, 
only  give,  and  rejoice  in  the  privilege  of 
giving;  but  honor  and  truth  must  be 
there.'  And  then  my  throat  seemed  to 
close,  and  my  head  to  fill  with  fire.  In 
wild  anger  I  said :  '  Go  to  whomsoever 
you  have  sold  yourself.  Pay  her  the  price, 
not  me.' 

"  Whether  it  was  my  passion,  or  whether 
the  cruel  blow,  which  broke  his  reserve,  I 
do  not  know.  The  lash  still  scars  my  con- 
science and  makes  me  groan  in  contrition, 
62 


MOONLIGHT 

if  it  did  not  reach  his,   and  awaken  his 
soul. 

"  He  threw  himself  on  the  porch  and 
buried  his  face  in  his  arms,  while  I  brooded 
over  him,  waiting  for  one  word  to  tell  that 
he  loved  me,  that  all  this  change  was  only 
on  the  surface.  It  never  came.  He  raised 
himself  and  leaned  against  the  porch  post, 
and  gazed  at  the  stone  fence  and  the  gray, 
cold  field  beyond,  making  his  choice. 

"  '  Forgive  yourself  as  I  forgive  you,'  I 
murmured  to  him.  But  he  no  longer 
heeded  me.  He  did  not  turn  towards  me, 
or  utter  a  word.  Then  suddenly  he  arose 
and  ran  down  between  the  lilacs.  Gone 
into  the  ocean  of  bitterness  !  " 

Her  voice  broke  into  soft  sobbing,  and 
she  bowed  her  head,  leaning  on  the  win- 
dow-sill, where  an  aureole  of  pear-blossoms 
crowned  her,  and  she  seemed  buried  in 
the  past. 

63 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

Then  I  spoke  to  her,  filled  with  the  keen- 
est sympathy,  and  knowledge  that  through 
it  all  she  loved  the  man  and  had  been  true 
to  him.  "  The  night  comes  always  and  cov- 
ers the  world — hides  our  pain.  Our  wounds 
must  heal,  and  so  much  remains.  Antares, 
the  Scorpion's  ruby  eye,  always  burns." 

A  long  time  passed  in  silence,  except  for 
the  querulous  cry  of  a  cat-bird  scolding  his 
mate,  as  I  waited  the  end  of  the  prayer  she 
said  for  a  lost  soul. 

"  Is  he  dead  ?  "  I  hesitatingly  asked. 

She  sat  up,  apparently  at  rest,  serene 
once  more,  her  armor  of  reserve  donned 
and  buckled  fast. 

"  I  do  not  know,"  she  said,  calmly. 
"  He  may  be  living."  Then  with  more 
earnestness  and  sadness  :  "  George,  who  is 
mine,  is  alive  in  my  heart  and  never  leaves 
me.  He  will  die  when  I  do.  The  other — 

he  with  a  surname — he  is  among  the  count- 
64 


MOONLIGHT 

less  hordes  of  earth — herds  of  dull  animals 
who  eat,  sleep,  and  gossip  while  the  beauty 
of  the  earth,  the  joy  thereof,  the  loveliness 
of  clouds  and  mountains,  the  pageantry 
of  sunsets  pass  before  their  eyes  and  they 
know  them  not." 

"  The  communion  with  nature  strange 
ly  ministers  to  heart-wounds,  and  by  the 
magic  of  motherhood  dries  the  tears  caused 
by  the  ever-breaking  cords  of  life  ;  breathes 
into  us  the  passion  of  renewal — of  Spring." 

"  Yes,  I  found  salvation  and  peace  in 
the  worship  of  beauty." 

"  And  the  church,  then?  "  I  asked. 

"  No,"  she  replied.  "  Heaven  and  hell 
separated  us ;  the  church  had  no  consola- 
tion for  me.  Its  ethereal  future  of  endless 
bliss,  apart  from  those  we  love  and  hope 
for  in  Eternity,  is  a  crude,  savage  reminis- 
cence. I  found  to  be  with  him,  I  must 
live  in  the  present." 
65 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"  There  is  no  refuge  for  a  heart  broken 
by  an  ignoble  love,  save  in  memory." 

"  Ah — but  one  must  worship,  one  must 
adore  something  when  exalted  by  love. 
This  breath  of  life  I  felt  was  in  the  beauty 
of  all  nature,  and  there  I  sought  relief. 
It  became  my  creed,  lifting  me  from  the 
slough  into  which  I  had  sunk,  until  I  re- 
gained my  self-esteem.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  religion  of  beauty  not  only  was 
my  soul  fed  by  the  perfume  and  color  of 
flowers,  the  rapture  of  clouds,  the  ecstasy 
of  mountains,  but  a  balm  was  laid  upon 
my  aching  heart  and  I  became  a  new  crea- 
ture, as  one  to  whom  had  been  given  a  new 
birth." 

"  True,  there  is  a  mystical  food  for  the 
soul  in  the  beautiful,  which  art  expresses 
and  nature  teaches,  full  of  solace  and  re- 
newal. This  higher  faith  you  sought  and 

found." 

66 


MOONLIGHT 

"Yes;  unled,  untaught,  the  revelation 
came  to  me  :  once  more  I  was  ravished  by 
the  scarlet  flame  of  the  poppies;  I  lifted 
my  eyes  again  to  the  tearful  blue  tones  of 
the  hills.  Joy  and  peace  came  to  my  heart 
and  soul,  for  I  had  entered  now  into  the 
inheritance  which  nothing  more  could 
destroy.  The  love  for  George  had  taught 
me  the  divinity  of  beauty,  without  which  I 
should  never  have  known  the  miracle  that 
lifts  a  wounded  soul.  My  eyes  were  opened 
by  love ;  my  heart  came  to  understand  and 
can  never  forget.  It  was  worth  the  pain." 


67 


DARKNESS 


I.— THE  UNDERTONE 

AFTER  Elizabeth  had  slipped  away,  the 
hum  and  love-cries  from  the  myriads  of 
lower  creatures,  which  filled  the  darkness 

with  their  passion  for  life  and  being,  came 
69 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

as  a  protest  to  my  ears.  "  Asceticism 
grows  to  be  a  vice,"  I  thought,  "  at  which 
nature  rebels,  and  which  it  finally  punishes. 
Buddhist,  dervish,  hermit,  or  Shaker,  to 
whom  self-denial  is  the  root  of  happiness, 
follow  the  path  of  failure  which  nations 
and  races  have  trod.  The  lack  of  human 
love  makes  ash-heaps  of  their  beliefs." 

Elizabeth  had  gone  this  thorny  way  as  a 
refuge.  To  her  the  white  cowl  of  purity 
and  the  black  robe  of  death  were  merely 
masks  with  which  she  covered  her  heart ; 
while  the  true  image  she  worshipped  was 
George.  That  love  alone  had  softened  and 
sweetened  her  life.  The  force  and  truth  of 
her  story  needed  no  argument  to  excite  sym- 
pathy, her  manner  and  unselfish  tone  were 
answer  enough ;  but  how  far  beyond  the 
bounds  of  charity  had  she  drawn  the  line, 
which  instinct  and  experience  insist  must 

be  rigidly  laid  down  ?   That  was  a  question. 
70 


DARKNESS 

If  love  had  no  bans  or  bars,  merely  a  butter- 
fly life,  our  worship  of  women  as  partners 
in  a  divine  sacrament  would  perish,  and 
the  world  would  lose  its  choicest  charm, 
its  only  satisfaction. 

Ignorance  cast  no  veil  of  mystery  before 
my  eyes  over  the  dark  side  of  existence, 
gilding  its  emptiness  with  a  false  glamour  ; 
nor  was  the  vast  difference  between  man 
and  woman's  view  of  their  sex  relations 
unknown  to  me,  where  one  side  sees  a 
casualty  and  the  other  discerns  a  crime. 
Rather  I  felt  the  pagan  in  me  rise  and  beg 
for  leniency. 

There  was  no  plea  in  my  heart  for  the 
guilt  of  the  love-passion,  no  savage  animal 
instinct,  seeking,  manlike,  to  turn  the  pen- 
alty from  this  coward  George.  His  fault 
had  not  been  a  spasm  of  nature,  palliated 
by  innocence ;  nor  could  the  oblivion  of 
love  excuse  it.  His  was  the  burden,  to 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

bear  as  fate  meets  it,  without  appeal.  My 
sense  of  justice  rose  against  Elizabeth's 
sacrifice. 

She  had  given  her  life  as  an  expiation  for 
his  sin  of  the  body.  In  her  eyes,  a  lesion 
of  the  flesh  had  irreparably  poisoned  his 
whole  nature,  and  yet  she  remained  true  to 
him.  The  fault  was  not  worth  the  price 
she  had  paid.  Her  love  should  have  died 
if  her  soul  so  abhorred  his  deed — a  deed 
that  carried  its  own  pall  and  one  that 
should  have  freed  her  heart  and  sunk  him 
in  oblivion. 

My  softness  came  for  mercy  where,  if 
memory  bore  any  fruit,  the  punishment 
was  to  live.  For  her  to  grieve  all  her 
days,  as  if  a  hero  had  fallen,  seemed  a 
hideous  mockery. 

Again  the  pagan  feeling  in  me  asked  for 
more  freedom,  to  spurn  the  trammels  which 

bind  our  portion  of  the  world  in  matters  of 

72 


DARKNESS 

love,  that  exalt  a  mere  passing  phase  in  life 
to  an  equivalent  of  death.  The  soul  is  our 
immortal  part;  and  not  the  body,  which 
grows  and  fades,  is  strong  or  ill,  incon- 
stant always,  and  quickly  or  slowly  moves 
to  decay  and  extinction.  A  love  which 
is  lit  and  flames  to  white  heat  in  the  nobler, 
ever-living  part  of  our  nature,  this  true 
love,  is  immortal,  while  the  passion  of  the 
passing  body  is  mortal.  That  they  should 
be  held  and  judged  as  one  and  equal,  no 
matter  how  commingled,  as  they  are  ;  that 
no  distinction  be  made,  no  separation  of 
penalties,  no  higher  or  lower  plane  drawn, 
is  a  tyranny  of  words  and  impressions. 
Life  would  have  more  beauty,  more  real 
virtue  and  continence  by  a  rebellion  against 
the  short-lived  love-passion  of  the  body, 
the  instinct  of  life. 

The  slow  boom  of  that  far-away  bell,  so 
in  accord  with  the  shimmering,  bloodless 
73 


REGRET   OF  SPRING 

moonlight,  a  while  before  had  thrilled 
through  my  heart.  Then  it  sang  of  the  uni- 
son of  love,  of  love's  beauty  and  fruition. 
It  was  the  music  of  love  sounding  through 
my  intensely  pleading  soul  and  nerves. 

This  new  stroke  hung  long  like  a  great 
wave,  as  if  dreading  to  tell  its  message. 
The  tone  sounded  stern  and  sad.  I  shiv- 
ered, hearing  as  I  did  a  peal  of  fate.  The 
higher  notes  of  the  chord  seemed  a  cry  of 
regret.  As  thy  fled  laden  with  all  that 
was  dear  to  me,  they  moaned — farewell. 

For  years  my  love  for  Elizabeth  had  been 
the  passion  of  my  soul,  a  fierce  though 
smouldering  fire.  The  avowal  of  her  love 
for  George,  ideal,  mystical  as  it  was,  yet 
none  the  less  true  to  its  very  core,  came  as 
a  knell  to  all  my  desires.  Nothing  I  now 
could  do  would  be  of  any  avail. 

"She  still  loves  him,"  was  the  outcry 
in  my  heart.  "  She  has  loved  him  through 
74 


DARKNESS 

these  years,  notwithstanding  his  past. 
My  state  is  without  hope." 

These  are  merely  words,  and  only  used 
to  express  the  pain  I  suffered.  As  yet,  I 
failed  to  realize,  scarcely  to  define  in  my 
mind,  the  full  meaning  of  her  story— its 
meaning  to  us  both. 

Indeed,  the  impulse  of  thought  went  on, 
and  with  it  a  cruel  force  in  my  heart. 
Two  voices  within  my  nature  seemed  to 
speak ;  heard,  then  and  through  the  future, 
above  all  which  passed  before  or  around 
me.  The  one,  as  it  were  in  my  brain 
moved  by  the  old  current,  still  continued 
in  its  speculation,  while  the  meaning  in 
the  bell-stroke  had  caused  my  heart  almost 
to  stop  beating. 

"If,"  I  thought,  "  this  madness  of  the 
senses  were  defined  in  language,  expres- 
sion, and  convention;  if  its  path  were 
marked  out  and  it  were  set  apart  from  the 
75 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

love  of  the  soul ;  if  it  were  ruled  by  more 
mercy  and  knowledge,  then  all  spiritual, 
higher,  nobler  love  might  soar." 

I  had  been  forced  to  love  her  intensely, 
wholly,  against  my  struggles  and  fears.  In 
ignorance  of  her  past  and  with  a  constantly 
growing  hope  to  win  her,  I  had  been  driven 
on.  I  was  conscious  of  a  nobleness  and 
depth  of  nature,  beyond  her  outward  seem- 
ing, which  I  felt  must  be,  would  be, 
gained  in  the  end. 

The  quiet  I  showed  when  she  began  her 
story,  the  ease  and  yet  the  restraint  I  held 
as  it  went  on,  came  from  a  self-confidence 
which  now  had  fled.  Her  heart  had  been 
laid  bare,  and  its  loyalty,  its  fealty  to  a 
lost  love  had  been  told.  The  barrier  over 
which  I  had  so  often  tried  to  force  my  way 
was  down.  Where  there  had  been  mystery 
and  enticement,  there  were  daylight  and 

despair. 

76 


DARKNESS 

"What  is  this  fate,"  my  heart  cried, 
"which  this  history  foreshadows?  Is  it 
death  ?  ' '  Both  mind  and  heart  seemed  to 
be  striving  to  draw  a  veil  over  her  story. 

The  mode  of  thought  as  well  as  the  man- 
ner men  put  on  like  a  mask  when  the  im- 
personal woman  is  with  them,  had  dropped 
from  me.  I  spoke  to  myself  as  if  talking 
with  another  man  in  a  more  abrupt  style 
and  without  details.  The  thoughts  crowded 
on,  while  in  my  heart  the  shadow  grew. 

My  mind  did  not  cease  to  coin  its  vain 
aphorisms  on  love,  and  seemed  scarcely  to 
heed  or  know  there  was  a  vast  sea  of  feel- 
ing below,  which  was  rising  to  a  storm.  I 
was  clearly  aware  of  the  stream  of  ideas ; 
the  heart,  I  only  felt  from  a  swelling  rush 
of  blood  through  my  veins. 

"  I  love  Elizabeth  as  if  she  were  a  god- 
dess unknowing  and  untouched  by  the  pas- 
sion of  a  day,"  my  heart  cried. 
77 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

The  moon  had  gone  from  the  sky,  leav- 
ing a  faint  pallor  reflected  from  the  fading 
blossoms.  They  had  become  corpse-like 
in  color,  as  if  the  poetry  of  an  hour 
had  died.  Shadows  drew  over  the  trees, 
and  blackness  came  beneath  them.  They 
ceased  to  inspire  or  move  or  charm  me. 
They  shone  no  longer  with  the  beauty  and 
the  sweetness  which  came  from  the  dear 
woman.  She  too  had  gone  below  my  hori- 
zon, and  in  her  place  there  was  left  only 
growing  shadows  and  darkness. 

Elizabeth  had  solaced  herself  in  a  pride 
of  devotion.  A  faith  so  pure,  so  uncon- 
quered  as  hers  had  proved,  was  the  admira- 
tion of  her  circle.  Murmurs  of  applause 
sounded  always  about  her  feet  as  the  rolling 
of  waves  on  the  sea-shore,  in  praise  of  her 
constancy  to  her  love-passion,  constancy 
to  an  ideal  which  in  reality  lacked  all  that 
makes  a  man  distinct  from  a  brute.  No 
78 


DARKNESS 

one  knew  her  actual  story,  but  each  one 
painted  the  mystery  for  himself  in  his  own 
colors. 

"  Who  was  this  man  of  whom  I  had  been 
unconscious,  of  whom  I  had  never  heard 
before  ?  ' '  my  heart  asked. 

Of  course  she  had  loved.  It  was  her 
right  and  the  purpose  for  which  God  gave 
her  life — to  soften  the  miseries  of  earth  to 
man,  to  bind  his  wounds,  to  make  him, 
through  love,  see  beauty  and  feel  joy  :  to 
renew  his  soul  and  her  own  also.  A  heart 
untouched  by  the  instincts  of  self,  un- 
moved to  middle  age  by  the  incessant  cur- 
rents of  love,  would  have  been  a  barren  waste 
to  me.  Youth  may  seek  unkissed  lips,  but 
age  would  clasp  in  its  embrace  a  mind  and 
soul  that  has  burned  with  an  undying  fire. 

"  What  kind  of  a  soul  had  that   been 
which  now  stood  holding  as  it  were  the 
point  of  a  sword  against  my  heart  ?  " 
79 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"  Love  is  all,  the  end,  the  aim,  the  hap- 
piness, the  object  of  human  endeavor. 
Men  slave,  women  endure  that  they  may 
say, '  I  love  you.'  Soul  and  body  are  given 
to  hear  one  supreme  being  say,  '  I  love 
you.'  ' 

Suddenly,  driven  by  a  new  impulse  of 
feeling,  I  stood  up  in  defiance  before  the 
black  night,  which  glowered  beyond  the 
walls.  My  teeth  were  hard  set  and  the 
muscles  of  my  face  ached  from  a  strained, 
anger-like  emotion.  A  rebellion  was  sway- 
ing upwards  in  me. 

My  soul  rebelled  at  this  constancy  to  a 
false  ideal.  George  was  of  the  earth,  and 
in  the  earth  she  should  have  let  him  lie. 
I  felt  the  expiation  of  her  life  for  his 
bodily  impurity  to  be  a  sin.  Had  this 
love  been  only  a  passion,  born  of  the  body 
alone,  moved  as  that  is  by  fresh,  natural 

impulses,    Elizabeth's    soul    would    never 

80 


DARKNESS 

have  worn  a  hair  shirt  in  adoration  of 
that  sainted,  large-limbed,  anemic  blond. 
The  loyalty  of  body  which  she  held  so 
priceless,  above  all  worthy  things  which 
had  been  hers — even  those  I  now  held 
out  to  her  with  imploring  hands — was  a 
fetish. 

"  My  conscience  is  clear  on  that  score. 
No  passing  fancy  of  a  few  days  or  years 
has  left  a  pang  of  remorse  in  me." 

I  had  never  dared  to  play  the  hypocrite 
to  her,  nor  had  I  pretended  a  singleness  of 
bodily  love  throughout  my  days.  These 
phases  of  life  passed  by  me,  leaving  no  re- 
morse. They  did  not  haunt  my  memory, 
as  ghosts.  No  faith  had  been  broken,  no 
obligation  existed.  But  my  soul,  once 
welded  to  another  soul,  was  never  by  my 
will  or  my  desire  beaten  asunder.  I  was  a 
man,  but  I  was  also  a  creature  of  spirit  and 
mind. 

81 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"  No  man  wins  a  noble  woman,  who  has 
not  the  heart  and  mind  and  knowledge  of 
the  art  of  love.  He  must  be  fitted  by  am- 
bition, culture — thought.  Yea  !  by  ad- 
versity even,  in  order  to  love  divinely. 
That  sensualist  George  could  have  had  no 
conception  of  the  meaning,  the  glory,  the 
splendor  of  love  that  mounts  from  the  soul 
and  is  winged  by  the  mind.  He  must 
have  been  utterly  unworthy.  His  affection 
or  gratitude — it  was  nothing  more  than 
that — had  ceased  with  his  benefits.  He 
had  never  loved  Elizabeth.  She  had 
bound  herself  by  the  fetters  of  her  church, 
her  generation,  her  race,  not  by  his  love." 

As  I  sat  where  Elizabeth  had  left  me,  it 
may  have  been  hours,  I  saw  the  stars  come 
out,  and  their  flashes  seemed  to  push  needles 
of  pain  into  my  being.  The  smell  of  the 
city's  smoke  and  its  impure  breath  mingled 

with  the  stale,  dead  foliage.     I  heard  no 
82 


DARKNESS 

longer  the  bee-like  hum  of  active  life  from 
below,  but  memory  sang  over  and  over 
again  a  mournful  strain  of  some  forsaken 
love. 

Fate,  at  least,  had  not  struck  me  this 
time  in  a  rough  or  an  unseemly  manner. 
The  blow  it  had  dealt  was  deadened  as 
with  a  soft  garment.  I  did  not  complain 
or  cry  out  in  denial.  I  had  met  with  cour- 
age the  death  of  too  many  things  dear  and 
precious  to  me.  My  career  had  left  me 
that  consolation. 

"  Yet,  it  has  been  of  no  weight  against 
this  unnatural  defense  set  up  by  Elizabeth 
— this  monstrous  fidelity  to  a  beast." 

The  knowledge  of  true  love-making,  and 
faith  in  love,  has  its  art,  an  art  to  be  ac- 
quired only  by  hard  and  yet  sweet  trials. 
The  experience  I  had  come  by  through 
rugged  paths  and  through  paths  strewn  as 
with  apple-blossoms,  was  ripe  in  me.  Love 
83 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

and  its  inevitable  laws  I  had  learned  in 
disaster  and  in  failure. 

That  ecstasy  of  love  which  instantly 
sweeps  the  body  over  all  obstacles,  is  bril- 
liant, joyous,  and  God-given,  but  it  is  only 
a  flash  of  light.  It  inevitably  goes  out  in 
a  shorter  or  longer  time.  Three  or  four 
years  is  its  allotted  span,  although  it  may 
have  a  longer  life,  as  man,  who  rarely  lives 
to  a  century.  Deny  it  if  you  will.  It  is 
the  law  of  nature,  that  places  no  restraints 
and  only  seeks  a  wide  diversion  to  secure 
succession — unlasting  is  the  decree.  Worry 
and  pain  and  falsity  are  born  of  the  social 
laws  which  make  fidelity  of  the  body  the 
highest  in  love,  above  devotion  of  the 
heart,  above  the  loyalty  of  the  soul. 

If  love  of  the  body  fails,  there  is  the 
end.  No  one  would  endure  such  a  failure 
or  palliate  the  offense.  But  to  place  it 

beyond  or  on  the  level  with  all  the  higher 

84 


DARKNESS 

and  nobler  parts  of  man,  or  the  beauty  and 
charm  of  woman,  was  folly. 

The  loves  of  youth,  wakened  by  propin- 
quity or  by  some  subtle  force  of  sympathy, 
bloom  like  wild  flowers  and  are  often  as 
short-lived.  This  is  not  the  grand  passion 
between  souls  which  is  not  born  of  a  glance. 
Youth  cannot  understand  the  unselfish, 
eager,  intense,  pure  passion  of  romantic 
love. 

A  woman,  not  a  girl,  no  matter  her  age, 
must  be  refined  by  self-discipline,  swelling 
with  her  strength  of  maturity,  reserved, 
with  a  mind  and  heart  drilled  to  know  the 
nobility  of  life,  before  she  can  feel  the 
depth  and  all-giving  power  of  true  love. 
Children,  vain  women,  thoughtless  men 
cannot  conceive  and  suffer  the  passion  of 
soul-love,  the  offspring  of  the  immortal 
within  us. 

But  the  love  of  the  spirit  when  it  lives 
85 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

alone,  unmated  by  the  love  of  the  body, 
exists  in  constant  danger  of  oblivion.  The 
impetuous,  inconsiderate,  relentless  frailty 
of  the  body — physical  love — often  rises  in 
madness  and  overwhelms  the  spiritual  love. 
Although  this  fierce  instinct,  which  at  times 
knows  no  law  or  restraint,  may  cover  the 
spirit,  bury  it  as  with  the  ashes  of  a  vol- 
cano, the  love  of  the  soul  is  never  de- 
stroyed. No  man  is  impeccable,  no  woman 
immoble,  no  one  can  escape  the  attack  or 
be  free  from  this  madness.  Any  exalted 
love  by  a  touch,  by  a  look  may  be  carried 
away  with  the  love-passion.  James  or 
Elizabeth,  or  both,  it  matters  not  the 
training  or  temperament,  nature  may  as- 
sert itself. 

"  I  never  loved  the  blond  heroine  of 
fiction,  nor  of  life.  Her  yellow  hair  and 
white  eyelashes  were  bloodless,  loveless  to 

me.     Falsely,  no   doubt   from   prejudice, 
86 


DARKNESS 

she  seems  to  be  an  image,  full  of  vanity, 
half-souled,  and  forgetful  of  the  truth.  I 
hate  a  blond  man  as  a  lover.  It  is  not 
hate  I  feel  for  George,  it  is  contempt." 

Without  answer  to  or  notice  of  this  out- 
cry, my  mind  went  on  in  its  track.  And 
yet  with  all  the  wealth  of  feeling,  the  un- 
selfish devotion  I  had  learned  as  the  price 
to  be  given  for  love,  with  all  the  passion  of 
sobered  manhood,  all  my  vaunted  culture, 
my  heart  had  fallen — "  Ah,  it  was  acci- 
dent " — had  pitched  headlong  into  the 
abyss. 

I  was  hereafter  to  be  apart  and  kin  only 
to  the  shades,  wrapped  not  in  the  golden 
robes  of  love,  but  hidden  in  the  black 
shadow  which  seemed  to  come  up  from  the 
ground,  like  a  mephitic  spirit,  and  to  try 
to  drag  me  into  its  embrace, 


II.— THE   SHRINE 

As  long  as  Jacob  served 
for  Leah,  so  long  had  I 
with  a  constantly  growing 
love  looked  vainly  into 
those  truthful  dark  eyes — 
deep  as  the  heart  of  a  dam- 
ask rose.  In  that  time  I 
had  passed  from  friendship 
and  interest,  through  inti- 
macy, to  affection  and  love, 
while  Elizabeth  seemed  to 
show  to  me  only  the  feeling  of  a  friend, 
of  one  whose  sympathies  were  all  mine. 
She  had  no  other  men  for  friends,  no 
special  work,  no  clubs,  those  crutches 
that  women  now  use.  Aside  from  my 
society,  she  took  scarcely  any  pleasure. 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

Our  going  together,  thinking  almost  as 
one,  was  like  the  intercourse  of  loving 
brother  and  sister. 

Her  charm  was  so  strong  that  I  had  not 
dared  to  tell  her  I  loved  her.  She  seemed 
a  most  delicate  vase  that  the  slightest  blow 
or  breath  would  shatter.  She  was  always 
guarded  by  some  inner  spirit  I  feared  to 
disturb.  Her  character  and  will,  her  self- 
reserve,  were  a  wall  of  protection  to  her 
heart,  although  her  mind  and  affection 
were  open  as  sunlight. 

Our  friendship  began  at  once  from  our 
literary  taste  and  sympathy.  On  that  im- 
personal ground,  or  in  the  thought  about 
religion  or  the  daily  trifles  of  interest,  we 
were  like  man  and  wife.  Our  age  and  the 
years  of  our  growth  in  friendship  had  left 
few  fields  we  would  not  enter  in  our  talks. 

I  loved  her  after  a  time  until  that  passion 

was  all  there  was  to  me  in  life.     I  gradu- 
90 


DARKNESS 

ally  gave  up  everything  in  which  she  was 
not  a  part.  I  loved  her  for  her  beautiful 
expression,  the  stately  way  she  moved,  her 
grace,  her  noble  view  of  life,  and  her  dis- 
dain for  the  trivialities  which  control 
women.  I  adored  her  for  a  fineness  of 
mind  rare  among  her  sex,  for  a  breadth 
and  singleness  of  sympathy,  a  charm  as  if 
she  were  a  creature  Greek-like  in  her  mind 
and  soul — full  of  beauty.  In  her  repose 
and  feeling,  she  seemed  like  a  Tanagra 
figurine. 

"  She   likes  me,  is  my  intense  devoted 
friend;  beyond  that " 

The  moment  the  tones  of  my  voice  sug- 
gested love,  or  when  I  laid  my  hand  on 
her,  she,  feeling  the  thrill  from  my  over- 
charged spirit,  became  cold.  It  was  as  if 
she  went  into  a  church  and  shut  the  door 
in  my  face.  The  more  she  retreated  the 
more  my  desire  grew  to  have  her  love  me. 
91 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

I  could  not  fathom  her  life  or  its  mean- 
ing, try  as  I  might ;  I  could  not  understand 
her  actions,  so  kind  and  sympathetic,  so 
wholly  free  up  to  a  halting  point,  and  be- 
yond that  a  blank.  Nor  could  my  instincts 
reach  a  foothold  or  find  her  heart.  It  was 
a  mystery  to  me.  Yet  it  was  a  sweet  and 
binding  one,  with  all  its  thorns  and  pains 
and  fears,  constantly  luring  me  on  and  on. 

Long  since,  an  ordinary  woman  under  my 
attacks  would  have  shown  the  cloven  foot 
of  deceit  or  a  hollow  behind  her  mask. 
She  could  not  have  deceived  me,  nor  have 
held  me,  as  a  lover,  more  and  more  certain 
of  the  nobility  of  her  soul,  had  she  been 
a  mere  womanish  sham  or  a  creature  of 
mind  without  a  heart. 

"  Ah,  my  soul,  she  does  love  me.  If  she 
did  not  love  me  she  would  not  daily  feed 
my  heart  with  the  invisible  nectar  of  love, 

the  currents  of  feeling,   of  sympathy,   of 
92 


DARKNESS 

selfishness,  of  delight  in  my  presence.  I 
never  could  have  peace,  never  could  have 
been  faithful  through  the  seven  long  years 
unless  she  had  loved  me." 

I  had  often  left  her  in  the  period  of  my 
pursuit  and  tried  to  forget  her,  only  to  re- 
turn more  deeply  fond  of  her  and  loving. 
She  never  seemed  to  change,  nor  could  I 
ever  pass  within  to  enjoy  her  whole  heart. 
Yet  I  must  love  her  and  I  must  seek  the 
truth  of  her  reticence.  There  was  no  other 
way  possible  to  me. 

"  It  was  not  her  fault  that  she  had  not 
said,  '  I  love  you.  I  am  yours.'  There 
is  some  impassable  chasm  between  us  she 
is  unable  to  pass.  She  would  have  done 
so  if  I  had  but  cleared  away  the  mist  which 
blinds  her." 

No  supposition  failed  to  go  through  my 
mind  in  the  dreary  days  and  nights.  Even 
there  dwelt  in  my  thoughts  the  fear  that 
93 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

she  had  had  a  "  past,"  innocently  though 
none  the  less  to  her  irreparable.  When  I 
carefully  probed  her  heart  for  such  a 
chronic  trouble  it  proved  utterly  untrue. 
She  laughed  at  me  in  her  strength.  That 
she  was  married  and  wished  to  conceal  a 
misfortune,  disgraceful  by  her  lack  of 
judgment,  was  just  as  untrue.  My  faith  in 
her  grew,  my  love  for  her  deepened  in 
these  many  trials  of  her  honesty. 

"  Her  loyalty,  her  truth,  her  fidelity  of 
conscience  had  bound  her  to  the  stake  of  a 
martyr.  She  loves  something,  an  ideal,  a 
memory  which  holds  her  from  me." 

The  mind  and  its  vain  striving  after  an 
analysis  or  solution  fought  in  me  for  the 
side  of  friendship,  while  my  heart  must 
have  had  hope  and  knowledge  of  her  feel- 
ings from  some  undefmable  source. 

She  must  have  known  the  doubts  I  had, 
the  distrust  I  felt,  for  I  did  not  try  to  con- 
94 


DARKNESS 

ceal  them.  But  she  did  not  resent  my 
suspicions,  seemingly  confident,  serene  in 
her  conscience.  She  tried  my  temper  by 
this  power  to  stand  quiet  through  it  all. 
She  was  firm,  she  was  unmoved.  I  proved 
her  in  every  way  to  my  heart's  complete 
satisfaction.  The  defeat  was  mine,  not 
hers. 

"  She  cannot  live  without  me.  Her 
story  cannot  change  her  heart,  nor  drown 
mine.  It  is  all  a  fiction  in  her  mind,  a 
filmy  thing  that  will  fade  away  now  she 
has  unburdened  her  soul." 

When  alone,  without  her  influence,  it 
seemed  the  simple,  easy  way  to  overcome 
her  would  be  to  speak  directly  and  insist 
on  her  telling  me  all — fighting  a  battle  on 
paper.  Meeting  her  bright  personality, 
her  force,  and  her  reserve,  I  was  disarmed. 

I  ceased  to  hope  even  to  know  why  she 
did  not  tell  me,  or  what  her  secret  was,  why 
95 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

she  did  not  give  me  her  whole  heart.  I 
ceased  to  try  by  indefinite  hints  or  ques- 
tions or  from  any  attempts  to  go  beyond 
the  line  she  so  coldly,  firmly  drew  against 
my  advance. 

This  evening,  with  its  mystical  influence, 
had  come  to  me,  as  to  her,  without  plan, 
unexpectedly.  But  I  was  master  enough  of 
myself  when  she  began  to  talk  not  to  divert 
her  by  the  intrusion  of  any  suggestions 
showing  my  love's  imperiousness. 

There  were  no  friends  of  her  youth  who 
had  told  me  her  early  story  from  which 
clue  I  could  have  pictured  her  character  or 
solved  the  mystery.  Often  I  had  wondered 
how  many  men  she  had  loved  and  of  what 
type  they  were.  This  disaster  at  the  start, 
this  rock  just  at  the  outgoing  of  her  voy- 
age, had  never  entered  my  mind.  Her 
early  past  she  had  always  insistently  shut 

away  whenever    I    approached    it.      Yet  I 
96 


DARKNESS 

had  wondered,  and  now  unwittingly  I  had 
bared  the  story  of  her  heart  to  my  own 
undoing. 

"  Now  I  know.  I  understand.  The 
mystery  is  solved." 

The  pain  through  these  years  of  battle, 
as  she  felt  in  her  being  the  struggle  of  the 
past  against  the  present,  must  have  been 
beyond  the  strength  of  a  man  to  bear. 
Her  pleasure,  her  devotion,  her  mind  and 
soul  were  bound  up  in  me.  Yes — my  heart 
felt  that  supreme  satisfaction.  Yet  her 
duty,  her  loyalty,  forced  her  to  worship  a 
brazen  image.  The  passion  and  love  bred 
in  her  heart  were  poured  out  before  this 
base  shrine.  I  was  sorry,  sorry  for  the 
ascetic  spirit  that  led  her  through  such  a 
way. 

"  It  must  have  been  the  breath  of  the 
beautiful  night,  the  love  symbols  on  the 
pear  trees,  which  were  more  than  she  could 
97 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

bear,  that  forced  her  to  confess  as  a  final 
defense." 

Again  I  heard  the  bell  "  umm  "  through 
the  leaves,  unalterable,  inevitable.  Noth- 
ing now  can  ever  change  her;  no  more 
could  a  devout  nun  be  called  back  to  com- 
mon ways.  She  has,  as  it  were,  said  to 
me,  "  I  have  loved  another  man — I  have 
loved.  I  am  no  longer  fit  to  love  again." 

A  curse  on  a  training  which  makes  such 
martyrs ;  that  uses  the  thorns  and  whips 
of  duty  and  pride  to  kill  the  taste  for 
beauty  in  nature,  the  independence  of 
love ;  that  shuts  the  teeth  and  bears  all 
ills  for  the  sake  of  a  false  idea." 


98 


III.— THE   APOLOGY 

A  PAIN  as  if  from  gaunt  hunger  be- 
came almost  unbearable,  while  my 
actual  heart  was  unconscious  of  the 
distress.  Then  I  remembered  ; 
there  came  back  to  me  like  a 
tornado,  black,  unmerciful,  not 
to  be  escaped,  the  days  when 
this  bitter,  despicable  fiend  had  had  me  in 
its  clutches.  I  was  jealous. 

Love  speaks  through  the  energies  of  the 
body  first  and  always.  Instinct,  desire 
from  the  life-force,  awakens — is  love  in  its 
first  form  ;  then  those  fibers  and  passions  of 
the  soul  and  mind  follow  in  its  wake.  Yet 
it  is  all  one  passion.  Reason  as  we  will 
and  must  from  the  moulds  of  ideas  into 
which  we  are  forced  by  our  race,  deny  it 
99 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

with  a  fierce  chastity  or  celibacy,  scorn,  de- 
grade it,  this  truth  yet  abides  in  all  nature. 

Jealousy  is  the  outcry  of  the  wronged 
bodily  spirit  of  love,  a  madness  born  of 
suspicion  and  distrust,  a  proof  of  the  love- 
passion.  Like  colors  mixed  on  a  palette, 
red  love  dyed  with  blue  hate  makes  purple 
jealousy. 

"  Purple  is  an  offense  to  my  sense  of 
beauty  of  color,  as  a  false  note  in  the  blare 
of  a  trumpet.  I  am  moved  with  pleasure 
at  the  sight  of  a  vermilion  pomegranate 
blossom,  and  shut  my  eyes  against  the  pur- 
ple clematis.  Elizabeth's  vaunted  fidelity 
is  but  a  violet  constancy,  where  her  love 
is  tinged  with  the  hate  she  feels  for 
George." 

Love  is  a  rope  of  many  strands,  one  of 
which,  the  core  as  it  were,  issues  like  the 
web  of  a  spider  from  the  body. 

"  This  George   was  large,    majestic   in 


DARKNESS 

body,  striking  in  color,"  I  felt,  as  my 
life's  history  began  to  pass  before  me. 

I  am  a  small  man,  spare  by  self-re- 
straint. There  is  no  feature  of  beauty  in 
my  face  to  attract  any  one.  Yet  I  am  not 
commonplace.  I  scarcely  know  myself 
how  I  look.  I  have  no  vanity  of  person. 
Once  a  sweetheart  said,  "  Anyway,  you  al- 
ways look  like  a  man  of  culture,"  and  she 
laughed  a  gay  sound  as  if  my  looks  were  of 
no  moment. 

"  Does  she  not  know,"  cried  my  heart, 
"  can  she  not  feel  and  realize  that  it  is  the 
little  men  who  are  the  intense,  devoted 
lovers  ?  ' ' 

The  large  bodies  of  big  men,  I  thought 
— my  mind  still  forcing  itself  trying  to  hold 
sway — seem  to  exhaust  their  love  and  spir- 
itual force  in  the  support  of  their  frames. 
They  care  only  for  their  own  ease  and  their 
own  bodily  comfort.  Their  vanity  must 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

be  fed  by  those  on  whom  they  confer  such 
nobility  of  form.  Yet  many  of  them  are 
sweet-tempered,  affectionate,  the  loveliest 
of  the  earth. 

To  me  there  are  no  such  love  letters 
printed  as  those  Napoleon  wrote  to  Joseph- 
ine. 

"  If  I  had  been  made  of  flesh  instead  of 
spirit,  if  my  step  had  been  that  of  an  ox, 
if  only  a  smile  of  physical  content  had 
shone  from  my  face  instead  of  the  lines  of 
struggle  and  defeat,  wrinkles  heart-made, 
then  she,  my  'Beth,  soul  of  my  soul — would 
she  not  have  changed  her  altar,  her  relig- 
ion ?  But  she  loved  him  and  not  me. 
Men  and  women  love  beautiful  creatures. 
Those  who  have  no  loveliness  must  brave 
their  fate  with  courage." 

I  was  well-born,  which  means  in  this 
land  that  one  has  forbears  of  culture  and 
refinement,  and  means  that  one  may  know 


DARKNESS 

whom  one  likes,  without  the  necessity  of 
strife  for  social  position.  It  is  for  this 
that  women  long  and  plot  and  sacrifice. 
Their  vanity  and  ambition  push  them,  as 
other  qualities  drive  men  in  their  sphere. 
A  place  in  society  is  woman's  success ;  it 
counts  highest  in  the  score  of  her  life. 

Elizabeth  knew  I  was  a  gentleman  by 
birth  and  breeding,  which  must  have  been 
a  heavy  stone  in  the  scales  whenever  she 
weighed  my  love  and  devotion  against  the 
past  and  George. 

"Short  as  I  am,  I  would  strike  quicker 
and  more  fearlessly  than  that  whelp.  But 
the  bodily  power  in  his  great  frame  which 
moved  her  is  not  in  me." 

From  nothing,  I  made  what  was  to  me 
a  fortune,  in  a  business  which  kept  me 
penned  as  if  in  a  prison,  which  kept  me 
sad  for  others  and  sore  as  a  defeated  gen- 
eral. I  felt  once  and  again  the  rewards  of 
103 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

success  on  the  waves  of  prosperity,  the 
pride  of  having  won  where  all  men  fight. 
There  was  no  lasting  pleasure  in  the  gain, 
nor  was  I  better  by  a  hair  for  the  waste  of 
strength  and  being. 

Then  I  was  ruined  by  a  defaulter.  Like 
a  flash  his  image  comes  back  to  me.  He 
too,  in  truth,  was  a  beautiful  blond,  a 
rosy-cheeked,  blue-eyed  young  man.  His 
voice  was  soft,  and  his  ways  full  of  con- 
fidence, almost  fascinating.  Every  one 
loved  him  for  his  kindness  of  manner,  for 
his  willing  service,  and  his  keen  mind.  A 
saint  or  a  gambler  would  have  trusted  him. 
Yet,  in  honesty,  it  was  a  dark-haired  woman 
who  devoured  him  in  his  youth. 

A  divine  generosity  of  friends  floated  me 
from  the  sands  :  my  heart  to-day  is  full  of 
gratitude,  though  it  is  twenty  years  since 
the  blessing  touched  me.  Ten  years  of 

that  time  it  took  to  rise  once  more,  when 
104 


DARKNESS 

a  tidal  wave  in  finance  swept  me  down  and 
on  to  the  worst — bankruptcy.  It  was  clear 
I  could  not  make  money,  and,  scorning  for- 
tune and  ceasing  to  try,  I  found  ease.  I 
gave  up  the  wish  and  hope  to  be  rich  and 
then  I  fairly  prospered.  Elizabeth  did  not 
care  for  the  things  wealth  brings  ;  riches 
never  enticed  her. 

"  If  George  has  grown  rich,  he  would 
not  now  be  sunk  unknown  in  the  vast  ocean 
of  people.  If  he  has  met  success,  his  vil- 
lage would  brag  of  it  or  envy  him.  She 
would  have  told  me  of  it.  She  would  have 
told  me  anything  she  knew  to  his  credit." 

Then,  too,  my  temperament  is  artistic. 
I  became  a  business  man  by  fatality.  A 
mixture  of  the  trend  of  being  almost  cer- 
tain to  cause  failure.  A  man  must  marry 
his  trade  to  win.  Mine  was  not  even  a 
mistress. 

George,  on  the  other  hand,  whose  bare 
105 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

touch  of  youth  had  left  an  indelible  stamp 
of  love,  was  beyond  and  far  from  me  in 
that  race  of  love,  which  after  all  is  the 
capping  stone  of  money  strife. 

I  ached  at  the  thought ;  I  scorned  her,  I 
despised  her  in  my  agony. 

Fame  or  notoriety  is  the  flame  most 
women,  moth-like,  eagerly  seek  in  men. 
These  are  the  mass  of  unsatisfied  women, 
victims  of  the  social  laws  they  themselves 
enact  and  enforce.  The  few,  the  noble 
natures  burn  in  brighter  fires,  although 
many  die  of  starved  hearts.  Some  day  the 
evolution  of  marriage  will  free  them  from 
the  chains  of  the  barbarian,  and  they  will 
have  choice  and  rule  in  love.  Then  will 
men  be  as  pure  and  true  as  women  are — a 
husband  will  be  ruled  by  the  same  fear  of 
loss  that  a  wife  now  is. 

My  family  obligations  were  many   and 

widespread.     I  felt  at  times  as  if  I  were 
106 


DARKNESS 

the  small  apex  of  an  inverted  pyramid. 
The  weight  sometimes  was  hard  to  bear, 
but  the  sense  of  power  it  gave  was  a  pleas- 
ure. The  help  by  sympathy  and  counsel 
brought  more  than  a  recompense.  Of 
friends,  true  and  royal,  no  man  had  more 
or  better.  But  my  taste  and  delight  was 
in  the  society  of  intellectual  women. 
Cards,  nor  wine,  nor  adventure,  nor  sport 
— men's  fields  of  amusements — had  any 
attraction  for  me.  Though  my  years  were 
many,  I  was  still  good  for  a  long  tramp  or 
for  a  night  of  tobacco  and  talk. 

And  my  pride  and  vanity  show  in  this 
roster  of  virtues,  while  my  hot  and  critical 
temper  and  sarcastic  speech  are  not  set 
down. 

"  Perhaps  George  was  fascinating?  It 
may  be  he  had  the  indefinable,  all  power- 
ful gift  of  charm  for  the  other  sex.  Then 

all  the  virtues   in  other  men  go  for  naught 
107 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

against  this  attraction,  this  piper  of  Hame- 
lin  quality.  Women  will  blush  and  follow 
to  any  end  at  a  glance  or  beck,  or  are  even 
moved  at  denial  by  such  a  power.  Charm 
is  before  beauty." 

This  thought  gave  me  some  consolation, 
and  I  gained  strength  to  light  my  pipe,  to 
begin  the  long,  weary,  rough  hill  that  I 
must  climb  or  die.  The  gloomy  hell  at 
the  bottom  was  familiar  to  me. 

I  had  no  charm.  Luck  of  fortune  was 
not  mine.  Only  struggle  and  failure. 

"  Oh,  dear  heart,"  I  cried  within  me, 
"  why  did  you  not  tell  me  long  ago,  tell 
me  when  you  felt  my  heart  shone  anew  in 
the  fire  of  those  glowing  eyes?  I  could 
have  borne  my  pain  then.  I  could  have 
sorrowed  with  you  over  your  desolation. 
I  would  have  been  a  consolation  to  you, 
satisfied  in  myself,  and  not  have  been  in 

the  agony  of  despair." 
108 


DARKNESS 

The  mystery  which  hid  George  from  my 
senses  and  instincts  seemed  now  like  a 
shifting  cloud,  but  to  force  my  imagina- 
tion. I  could  plainly  see  him  standing 
there,  outside  of  the  window,  half  in  pro- 
file. I  could  see  his  very  shoes,  and  the 
waves  of  his  long  yellow  hair,  the  half-cyn- 
ical, satisfied  smile.  He  was  a  great  fig- 
ure, a  splendid  creature.  I  gazed  at  him 
long,  he  smiling,  as  he  would  have  done, 
over  my  head. 

"  In  a  fight  of  love,"  spoke  my  heart, 
"  there  is  no  hope  for  me  against  such 
a  man  as  this.  I  may  rage  and  reason,  it 
is  without  avail."  My  being  seemed  to 
break  in  tears  of  sorrow  for  myself. 

From  short  clothes  to  gray  hairs,  sweet- 
hearts had  been  my  pleasure.  As  I  grew 
older,  that  I  might  love  purely,  sweetly, 
some  woman  of  beauty  and  soul  was  the 

utmost  craving  in  me — my  happiness.    Per- 
109 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

haps  it  is  not  wise  to  expect  human  fidelity 
through  the  worries  of  days  and  the  changes 
in  thought.  Maybe  it  is  not  in  the  nature 
or  destiny  of  woman  that  she  should  keep 
faith  where  there  is  no  bond.  Men  are 
faithless  physically;  women,  in  their 
hearts.  Thus  are  we  made  to  the  glory  of 
those  who  are  monks,  and  the  pride  of 
those  women  who  worship  an  ideal  and  not 
an  actual  man. 

It  was  a  vain,  heart-breaking  pursuit, 
which  led  me  to  feel  in  the  beginning  of 
love  that  eternity  was  too  short,  and  then, 
suddenly,  life  or  days  too  long.  She  always 
left  me  : — not  angry,  not  pointing  a  finger 
at  some  unpleasant  fault  of  manners, 
of  temper,  or  of  thought.  She  grew 
tired. 

Youthful  love  may  have  blossoms  as  nu- 
merous as  a  rose  tree ;  loves  of  the  soul 
are  few  and  rare.  If  the  sympathy  is 


DARKNESS 

entire,  no  break  ever  comes.  The  gods 
smile,  and  those  two  look  eternal  love  into 
each  other's  eyes.  They  cast  a  halo  of 
love  about  them  which  radiates  far.  That 
had  never  been  my  fate. 

Such  histories  no  fine-natured  man 
reveals,  nor  should  they  carry  belief  if 
told.  As  Landor  says :  "  These  are  the 
two  things  in  the  world  utterly  unpardon- 
able— to  say  and  to  forget  by  whom  we 
have  been  beloved."  Let  the  end  justify 
me  in  the  case  of  Elizabeth. 

Satiety  is  the  bane  of  love,  which  sounds 
like  a  mere  formal  commonplace  sentence 
until,  deserted,  you  seek  the  cause  of  love's 
ending.  When  the  fire  had  sunk  from  a 
blaze  to  an  ember  I  searched  through  the 
ashes,  and  that  I  found  to  be  the  reason  of 
my  failure.  There  were  other  reasons,  no 
doubt,  faults  and  lesions  in  me ;  yet  it 
seemed,  after  all,  that  I  hunted  the  game 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

too  fiercely,  that  I  demanded  too  much. 
It  was  my  fault.  I  never  blamed  the  wo- 
man I  loved.  I  grieved  and  grew  to  feel 
that  the  power  to  hold  her  was  not  mine. 

Whether  it  was  some  inherent  moral 
disease,  whether  the  lack  of  a  fine  point 
to  my  mental  spear,  or  whether  my  love 
drowned  her  personality,  her  freedom — 
caged  her,  as  it  were — I  do  not  know. 
Whatever  the  worm  which  girdled  my  tree, 
the  leaves  nevertheless  died  and  fell,  and 
the  stark  bare  limbs  and  trunk  stood  until 
decay  slowly  brought  them  to  the  ground. 

These  few  noble  logs  rest  now  on  the 
earth  in  beds  of  spring  flowers  or  crisp 
autumn  leaves.  I  often  lie  beside  them  in 
an  ecstasy  of  memory;  or  on  them,  as  it 
were,  I  sit  alone  to  hear  the  cardinal -bird 
whistle  a  love  call  to  his  mate.  Some  rare 
times  in  the  deep  woods  I  may  hear,  afar, 
Pan  vainly  pipe  in  sorrow  for  his  love. 


DARKNESS 

No  self-distrust,  no  perception  of  the 
germ  of  blight,  no  experience  ever  taught 
me  to  beware  when  love  began  to  grow, 
nor  was  it  self-indulgence  which  swept  me 
into  a  new  trial.  After  the  wound  had 
partly  healed,  my  craving  to  love  came 
again,  changed  in  form  and  aim,  yet 
strong  and  not  to  be  denied.  It  ruled 
me,  and  I  was  at  the  mercy  or  even  at  the 
beck  of  any  sympathetic  soul.  I  was  for 
hire,  to  give  my  means  and  heart  for  love. 

Only  age  with  its  falling  tide  of  vitality 
gradually  stopped  the  imperative  need. 
The  lesson  I  had  learned  in  business  I 
should  have  seen  was  the  same  in  love. 
But  I  did  not  and  could  not  see. 

My  hot  blood,  my  blind  love,  was  so  ab- 
sorbing as  at  times  to  make  me  lose  self- 
control.  The  result  was  none  the  less  bit- 
ter. It  taxes  one's  pride  too  deeply  even 
to  think  of  these  disasters,  and  you  cry  out 
113 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

in  mortification  of  spirit  when  they  come 
back  to  your  soul. 

Years  ago  an  editor  wrote,  when  he  re- 
turned to  me  a  story  I  had  sent  him  :  "  I 
am  afraid  you  are  an  amateur." 

"  Yes — I  am  an  amateur  in  art,  in  busi- 
ness, in  life,  an  amateur  in  love." 

It  seemed  that  when,  after  long  patience 
and  arduous  work,  and  strife  to  rise  among 
men,  to  be  beloved  by  a  woman  ;  when  my 
fingers  just  curled  over  the  ridge  of  success, 
and  I  saw  the  fields  beyond  decked  with 
asphodel,  saw  the  far  opal-tinted  hills  of 
Eden,  then  my  grasp  slipped  and  I  fell 
back  to  the  very  depths. 

"  Ah,  Elizabeth,  if  you  had  then  clasped 
my  hands,  I  should  have  stood  on  the 
heights  of  literature,  of  love.  You  were 
my  inspiration,  my  life." 

The  pains  as  of  hunger  gnawed  in  me.   My 

cheeks   burned.      I   was  in  the  heat  and 
114 


DARKNESS 

fever  of  jealousy.  Through  the  sleepless 
night,  when  the  persistent  brain  ground 
over  and  over  the  same  chaff,  thought  be- 
came a  loathing  in  its  iteration. 

"  Why  deny  immortality  to  the  love-born 
spirit  when  one  can  so  hopelessly  stare  at 
eternity  through  an  endless  night?  There 
is  no  end." 


DAWN 


I.    FIRES 


WHEN  Eliza- 
beth came  to 
live  at  the 
home  of  my 
married  sister, 
her  friend,  with 
whom  I  also 
lived,  I  was,  I 
suppose,  what 
the  world  called 
a  selfish  old 
bachelor.  A 
novel  was  the 
best  anodyne  I 
knew  for  the 
pain  I  felt  over 
my  lack  of  rep- 
utation and  of 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

appreciation;  that  remedy  I  took  day  and 
night. 

She  may  have  told  my  sister  of  her  for- 
mer life,  of  how  her  means,  some  $5,000, 
had  been  gained.  To  me  she  was  as  reti- 
cent as  an  owl  who  screeches  only  in  the 
night  when  he  thinks  no  one  will  hear  him 
— New  England  egotism. 

After  she  came  to  know  me,  and  found 
that  I  was  in  a  financial  business,  she 
brought  this  money,  evidently  her  whole 
fortune,  to  me  with  greatest  trust  and  fear- 
lessness. It  had  not  in  its  probable  hard 
earning  and  acquisition  made  tentacles 
about  her  heart.  She  only  cared  for  it  as  a 
means  to  live.  For  some  new  reason,  a 
brighter  life  or  one  broadened  by  associa- 
tion with  me,  she  wished  a  larger  income. 
There  probably  were  other  ways  in  which 
she  earned  money,  though  she  never  spoke 

of  them,  and  these  may  have  failed  her. 
118 


DAWN 

With  the  faith  of  a  child  she  trusted  me 
with  all  her  means,  telling  me  to  venture  it 
in  speculation,  to  risk  its  loss  or  increase 
it  largely. 

"  Take  no  fear  in  your  wallet,"  she  jest- 
ingly said,  when  she  had  overcome  my 
doubts  and  denials;  "fear  frightens  for- 
tune; 'plunge,'  is  that  what  you  call  it? 
Take  the  first  good  inspiration  and  follow  it 
with  courage.  A  woman  plays  !  She  loses 
all  or  gains  all." 

I  liked  her  spirit,  and  doubtless  was 
moved  by  her  trust  and  confidence  in  me. 
Her  character  and  temper  became  clearer 
and  of  interest.  At  least  she  had  an  in- 
stinct of  some  kind,  for  I,  who  had  often 
tried  to  win  in  this  uncertain  field  and  had 
lost,  was  quickly  lucky  for  her.  We  began 
the  building-up  process,  which,  during  a 
great  rise  in  securities,  made  for  her  all 

she  asked.     No  temptations  led  her  to  try 
119 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

again  to  speculate  or  to  increase  her  gains. 
She  played,  she  won,  and  was  done. 
"  Now  invest  it  as  securely  as  possible," 
she  said,  "  for  speculation  is  as  full  of  pit- 
falls as  marriage." 

The  growth  of  this  little  fortune  wakened 
me  from  the  sad  and  silent  state  I  had  been 
in.  It  brought  us  nearer  together  by  its 
continual  growth,  which  we  watched  as 
parents  a  child.  We  were  happy  over  that 
imaginative  bubble  of  money,  talked  night 
after  night  how  and  what  should  be  done. 
My  heart  asks  :  "  Could  it  have  been  her 
deliberate  plan  to  risk  her  fortune  to  save 
me  from  myself  ?  ' ' 

Before  her  coming,  my  unhappiness  had 
been  deep.  I  was  not  cross-grained  or  un- 
kind, but  the  abilities  I  felt  were  mine, 
the  desire  to  create  things  of  beauty,  and 
my  certain  failure  at  the  very  end,  had  sad- 
dened me. 

1 20 


DAWN 

She  was  sun  and  spring  to  my  nature. 
The  old  sturdy  trunk  felt  the  sap  of  vigor 
run  once  more  from  the  new  vitality.  It 
clothed  its  branches  in  blossoms  of  talk,  of 
willingness  to  seek  things  of  interest.  Her 
charm  and  cheerfulness  stirred  my  heart  in 
delight.  I  admired  her  at  first,  and  as  years 
went  by  grew  to  adore  her. 

Perhaps  her  ability  and  willingness  to 
listen  intelligently  to  pure  thought,  her 
rare  memory  and  keen  literary  judgment, 
better  far  than  mine,  were  the  cords  which 
first  bound  me.  She  would  hear  me  for 
hours  and  not  seem  wearied.  I  found  in 
her  not  only  a  companion,  but  a  new  part 
of  myself. 

Yet  the  contrast  of  our  lives  on  all  ques- 
tions— love  or  marriage  or  conventions — 
was  evident.  We  had  gone  different  roads, 
and  neither  could  change  the  goal.  I  felt 
that  with  her  the  balance  of  my  days  would 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

be  full  of  ease  and  peace  and  interest.  I 
felt  the  sum  of  all  I  had  vainly  heaped, 
of  so  much  value  to  some  one,  was  hers. 
My  soul,  my  mind,  everything  that  had 
been  mine,  she  had  rightly  won.  My  soul 
was  hers  and  ever  must  be. 

And  now,  with  the  perversity  of  the  past, 
the  mud  in  the  bottom  of  my  nature  was 
stirred  by  jealousy.  I  was  eager  to  show  her 
how  she  had  wounded  me.  The  feeling 
from  the  night  was  to  strike  her  heart,  a 
pride  to  make  her  feel  what  she  had  lost, 
to  abase  her. 

The  next  morning,  when  she  came  down, 
I  was  sitting  in  the  same  chair  by  the  win- 
dow, as  if  to  suggest  I  had  not  left  it  during 
the  night.  In  my  mouth  I  held  a  short 
pipe,  sign  of  storm,  different  from  the  ease- 
ful long  stem  I  smoked  when  in  the  flow  of 
laughter  and  joy.  I  held  a  newspaper  be- 
fore my  face. 


DAWN 

"  Hillo,"  she  cried,  in  her  usual  happy 
manner.  The  voice  was  low  and  musical, 
thrilling  by  its  waves  of  emotion.  Indeed 
it  was  as  beautiful  in  its  way  as  a  "  La 
France."  In  its  round  tone  a  golden 
thread  of  vital  quality  shone,  typical  of 
her  nature.  It  thrilled  me. 

"  Good  morning,"  I  replied  roughly. 

"  Your  fires  are  lighted  early.  Are  you 
cold-hearted  this  bright  morning?"  she 
asked. 

"  One  must  have  some  solace.  You 
stamp  out  all  other  fires,"  I  growled. 

"So  you  would  use  your  heel  to—" 
she  said  rather  haughtily,  although  there 
was  a  faint  raillery  in  her  tone. 

"  No,"  I  broke  in,  "  not  on  you." 

Then  I  saw — I  had  not  yet  looked  into 
her  eyes — that  she  had  changed  the  formal 
dress  she  usually  wore.  Was  it  the  fichu 

she  had  discarded  alone,  or  was  her  hair 
123 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

done  in  a  new  fashion?  She  seemed 
younger,  as  if  she  had  laid  down  a  burden. 

"  Well,  then,  put  out  both  your  fires," 
she  replied  with  a  laugh,  coming  forward 
with  outstretched  hand. 

"  One  fire  in  me  will  never  die,  though 
you  have  tried  to  smother  it." 

"  You  should  be  happy  even  in  the  smoke 
and  smother." 

"  Meaning,"  I  asked,  "  that  I  should  give 
up  my  love  for  friendship  and  be  satisfied  ?  " 

I  had  taken  her  hand  which  she  had 
given  me  in  the  ordinary  morning's  salute. 
It  was  the  ceremony  of  the  day  between  us, 
the  equivalent  of  what  would  have  been  a 
kiss  from  one  born  in  our  warmer  c)imate. 
Perhaps  it  meant  more  to  her,  was  of  far 
more  value  if  I  had  but  known. 

Here,  as  in  all  my  story,  I  confess  to  ig- 
norance of  women's  meanings  and  the 

desires  of  women.     I  only  wish  to  make 
124 


DAWN 

women  happy,  although  a  strong  emotion 
in  me  always  blurs  my  sight  and  defeats 
my  aim. 

"  Meaning  that  morning  is  not  night. 
To  be  serious,  then,  is  to  smoke  before 
breakfast,"  she  said. 

"Will  the  night  have  hope,  if  I  wait?  " 
1  asked.  "You  know  I  love  you.  You 
must  feel  my  heart  is  sick  with  jealousy." 

She  did  not  draw  away  her  hand,  nor,  I 
felt,  did  she  take  her  eyes  from  me. 

"  No  !  James  ! — dear  one  of  this  world. 
It  is  broad  day  always  between  you  and  me. 
I  love  you,  but  others  hold  me  too." 

' '  What  are  the  dead  of  years  to  us  ?  "  I 
asked. 

"  Sacred,"  she  said  firmly. 

"  And  you  would  burn  my  heart  as  a 
sacrifice,"  I  replied  with  heat. 

"  Ah,  James,"  she  said,  regretfully  yet 
earnestly,  "  this  is  not  a  melodrama." 
125 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"  For  me,  it  is  a  tragedy." 

"  We  are  not  children,"  she  went  on. 
"  Do  not  rave.  Your  reason  must  see  I  am 
right." 

"  But  you  do  not  know  what  love  is,  how 
intensely  it  drives  me." 

She  sighed,  and  I  looked  at  her  noble, 
refined  beauty,  at  the  fire  of  the  soul  which 
glowed  in  her  eyes.  The  lines  of  her  face, 
the  cuts  and  wounds  of  life,  had  fallen 
straight  and  were  sad,  so  sad,  in  their 
expression. 

I  thought  of  the  sacrifice  this  woman 
had  made  for  duty  and  love,  of  the  sweet- 
ness that  through  years  she  had  given  to 
my  days.  Yet  that  some  one  else  should 
harbor  in  her  heart  was  gall  to  me. 

"  How  handsome  you  are,"  I  ex- 
claimed. 

Her   face    lighted   up    and   she   smiled 

sweetly.     "  At  least,  James,  you  know  the 
126 


DAWN 

art  of  love-making,  the  way  to  a  woman's 
heart ;  none  of  us  are  ever  too  old  to  hear 
that.  So  be  the  lover  you  have  been." 

"  If  you  would  be  my  wife,  that  sun 
should  always  shine,"  and  I,  too,  smiled. 

With  this  she  clasped  my  forearm  with 
her  two  hands,  saying  :  "  That  love  in  all 
its  bearings  we  have  talked  of  a  thousand 
times.  As  we  are,  we  have  been  happy. 
You  would  break  the  charm.  Let  us  go  on 
as  we  have  gone." 

"The  world ?" 

"  What  are  conventions  to  us  so  that  our 
consciences  are  clear?  We  do  not  or  shall 
not  contaminate  it,"  she  laughed. 

"  For  a  Puritan  you  are  the  worst — "  I 
replied. 

"  You,  too,  pose  in  a  new  position.  You 
who  say  such  unutterable  things  and  would 
overturn  morals,  and  who  trample  on  the 

chiefest  virtue,  yet  are  a  Trappist  in  deed." 
127 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

Then  in  her  gayety  she  strode  far  be- 
yond her  wont,  her  day,  her  convention, 
when,  with  her  hand  on  my  cheek,  she 
turned  my  head  towards  her  and  kissed 
my  lips. 

This  action  was  all  so  sudden,  so  unlike 
her  whose  cheek  my  lips  had  never  touched, 
who  had  seemed  almost  a  statue  in  her 
rigidity,  that  I  stood  in  amaze.  When  my 
arms  sprang  to  clasp  her  she  was  gone 
from  my  reach.  She  had  taken  a  quick 
agile  step  aside,  so  that  I  must  turn  farther 
even  to  see  her.  There  was  no  flurry,  no 
apparent  memory  of  her  act  or  its  serious 
meaning  to  me,  in  her  smiling  face.  I 
gazed  at  her  with  an  ardor  I  had  never  be- 
fore felt.  Laughing  at  me,  she  gayly  said  : 
"  There  !  that  takes  the  thorn  of  jealousy 
out  of  your  heart  and  heals  the  wound. 
Growl  now  that  you  missed  your  chance  to 

return  the  salute. ' ' 

128 


DAWN 

"  One  more  trial,"  I  begged,  going 
towards  her. 

"No,  sir;  that  must  last  you  for  the 
balance  of  your  life,"  she  said,  her  old  air 
of  Puritan  seriousness  beginning  to  come 
back.  "  Perhaps  it  may  teach  you  that 
women  have  hearts  and  are  loyal  and  grate- 
ful as  well  as  men." 

"  But,  'Beth,  if  you  love  me—"  I 
started  to  plead. 

"  What  1  did  was  a  single  fact  against 
your  years  of  fiction  and  imagination,"  she 
hurriedly  half  declaimed.  "  Marriage,  you 
have  often  held,  should  last  for  four  or  five 
years,  then  be  broken  at  will.  Hundreds 
of  times  you  have  told  me  men  and  women 
could  love,  be  pure  and  happy,  without  the 
'  I  pronounce  you  man  and  wife  '  of  any 
justice  of  the  peace.  Practise  what  you 
preach. ' ' 

"  Man  and  wife  we  must  be,  feeling  as  I 
129 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

do,  and  in  the  atmosphere  in  which  we 
live,"  I  exclaimed. 

She  replied  in  equal  heat,  almost  anger: 
"  Understand,  I  am  still  a  woman.  That 
relation  is  the  highest,  sweetest,  and  truest 
on  earth.  Once  married,  bodies  are  for- 
ever joined.  Marriage  is  the  arcana  of  the 
future.  Our  love  does  not  reach  or  trench 
on  marriage." 

"  Boska,"  which  pet  name  I  often  called 
her,  meaning  the  charmer,  "I  will  not 
argue;  my  heart  is  sore  thirsty  for  you." 

She  looked  in  my  eyes  steadily,  earn- 
estly. Softened  and  almost  tender  in  her 
tones,  she  replied:  "James,  I  adore  you. 
Tell  all  your  world,  I  do  not  care.  But  I 
will  not  marry  you." 

"  If  you  love  me,  how  can  you  deny 
me?  "  I  asked  with  passion. 

"Ah,   my  dear  friend,  you  know — you 

know  I  love  you.     Why  ask  more  of  me? 
130 


DAWN 

By  this  mating  you  would  break  down  the 
invisible  barrier  which  lies  between  such 
different  natures  as  ours.  You  would  take 
away,  satisfy  that  eagerness  to  deserve,  to 
gain  the  esteem  of  the  other  which  is  so 
much  to  us  and  which  only  youth  compen- 
sates. You  would  kill  the  love  we  feel  for 
each  other.  Our  feeling  is  of  the  mind 
and  soul,  infinitely  apart  from  that  other 
'  love-passion,'  as  you  scorn  it." 

The  tremor  in  her  voice  warned  me  she 
was  strained  to  the  last  point.  I  knew 
well  if  she  broke  then  and  left  me,  her 
character  was  such  that  there  never  would 
be  sight  of  her  again,  that  she  would  fly 
from  me.  "  Forgive  me,"  I  said.  "The 
thought  that  you  were  not  wholly  mine 
has  bred  in  me  a  madness.  The  disease 
I  have  always  railed  against  has  seized 
me." 

"  Marriage  was  not  your   impulse   and 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

desire  until  I  told  you  my  history,"  she 
said  sternly.  "Some  other  lion  roared; 
then  his  mane  bristles  and  he  roars  and 
beats  the  earth  with  his  tail,"  she  said, 
half  jestingly. 

"It  has  been  anything  but  a  roar  with 
me ;  rather  groans." 

Now  she  came  to  me,  taking  my  pipe 
from  my  hand  and  placing  it  on  the  man- 
tel. Then,  in  her  old  reserved  manner, 
with  dignity  said  :  "  No  more  of  this.  Here 
you  *re  to  live  and  amuse  me.  Here  am  I 
to  care  for  you  and  listen  to  you.  There 
shall  be  no  change.  That  is  the  law  and 
this  is  the  end — this  is  the  result  of  trust- 
ing a  man  too  much,"  and  she  smiled  at 
me. 

"Is  there  to  be  no  hope?  "  I  asked  sub- 
missively. 

"  Hope  !     Oh,  mountains  of  it,  if  you 

like,"   she  gayly  replied. 
132 


DAWN 

"You  will ?" 

"  Come  ;  the  aroma  of  the  coffee  calls  in 
the  same  way,  but  louder  than  your  desire 
— how  is  it  that  you  put  it? — '  imperative 
instinct.'  " 


133 


II.— HOPE 


THE  aloe  blooms  rarely :  com- 
mon opinion  has  it,  once  in  a  cen- 
tury. All  other  times  its  straight- 
laced,  upright,  conventional  leaves 
are  full  of  vigor  and  regularity.  It 
seems  incapable  of  flowers  or  color. 
Sharp  points  warn  off  demonstra- 
tions of  love.  When  the  tall  flower- 
stalk  is  ladened,  a  pyramid  of 
beauty,  its  great  capability  and  heart 
are  known.  Then  the  short  period  of  blos- 
som gone,  the  cold,  green,  unchangeable 
nature  closes  over  the  break  in  the  plant's 
life.  Elizabeth  bloomed  only  at  the  end 
of  seven  years.  Her  flower  of  gayety  and 
frankness  ended  with  its  birth.  Her  seren- 
ity, her  manner,  her  words,  gave  no  fur- 
ther sign  of  the  bloom  of  her  heart. 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

The  pear  blossoms  which  had  served  as  a 
mirror  to  the  moonlight,  and  which  I  felt 
were  typical  of  my  struggle  to  live  again, 
were  more  fruitful  than  the  aloe.  They 
strove  to  mature,  and  as  the  summer  came 
on  showed  over  the  trees  green  balls  be- 
tween the  leaves.  Her  avowal,  her  kiss, 
seemed  to  be  rare  flowers  of  beauty  that 
were  for  the  eye  alone  and  not  the  heart. 

"  She  must  have  loved  that  man,"  I  felt. 
"  She  told  me  she  threw  her  arms  around 
his  neck  and  passionately  kissed  him. 
What  a  beautiful  woman  she  must  have 
been  in  her  glory?  She  is  his.  She  still 
longs " 

The  summer  climate  of  the  Ohio  Valley 
is  semi-tropical,  although  the  dwellers 
there  do  not  own  to  it.  In  this  broad  cen- 
tral belt  the  lusty  corn  from  its  rapid 

growth  rustles  in  the   hot  nights  like  the 
136 


DAWN 

crisp  crackle  of  the  sea.  The  clay  soil 
opens  in  inch-wide  mouths  clamorous  for 
rain.  The  meadows  are  scorched  brown; 
the  hillsides  are  bare,  showing  the  raw 
yellow  earth  through  the  dusty  weeds  or 
bushes. 

You  feel  on  the  edge  of  the  cactus  coun- 
try, where  passions  dominate  reason  and  the 
rights  of  the  body  control.  The  ascetic, 
active  habit,  the  vigor  of  mind,  wages  a 
constant  battle  with  languor  and  desire. 
The  daily  midnight  of  ninety  degrees 
often  leads  to  strange  vagaries  of  the  imagi- 
nation, breeding  ill  temper  and  suspicion. 
There  are  no  punkahs,  no  siestas,  no  patios 
in  this  northern-peopled  country  to  flatter 
one  into  a  fancied  ease,  or  palliate  the  suf- 
fering from  the  heat.  The  will  often  acts 
as  if  unbridled,  and  the  heart  often  aches  as 
if  it  wandered  in  a  parched  desert  of  jeal- 
ousy where  there  is  no  shelter  or  escape. 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"If,"  I  thought,  "a  letter  should  be 
sent  to  Rockfield  asking  who  this  George 
was,  and  what  had  become  of  him,  it  would 
start  a  fire  of  gossip  like  a  lighted  brush 
heap.  The  smoke  at  least  would  drift 
back  to  Elizabeth." 

Under  this  heat  of  the  summer  days 
vegetable  refuse  festers,  and  miasma 
breeds  :  the  human  body  and  its  nerves 
are  strained  almost  to  a  breaking  point; 
the  mind  chews  any  cud  of  wrong.  This 
oxidization  of  the  flesh  and  spirit,  as  it 
were,  is  a  latent  fire  which,  if  it  grow  into 
a  flame,  madness  follows. 

On  the  surface  I  had  never  before  been 
so  amusing  and  interesting  to  Elizabeth,  I 
knew  from  her  blithe  tone  and  the  sparkle 
of  her  eyes.  I  took  a  lesson  from  her 
— self-control,  she  called  it;  to  me  it 
was  hypocrisy.  But  necessity  forced  me, 
desire  impelled  me,  in  order  to  keep  fast 
138 


DAWN 

hold  of  her  as  well  as  to  conceal  the  feel- 
ing stirring  within  me.  She  on  the  other 
hand  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  episode, 
and  to  have  put  the  story  she  had  told  for- 
ever away.  Her  manner  towards  me  was 
more  affectionate,  freer,  in  fact,  as  if  now  I 
must  understand  her  heart,  abide  by  its 
laws,  and  ask  nothing  more  than  she  gave. 
While  I  loved  her  more  deeply,  she  felt  it 
seemed  but  friendship  and  affection,  not 
love. 

No  art  that  I  could  use,  no  sacrifice  I 
made,  nothing  stirred  her  to  thrill  again 
with  passion  or  yield  a  hair's  breadth.  I 
could  make  no  inroad  or  gap  in  the  steel 
armor  of  her  reserve. 

Yet,  for  the  most  part,  it  was  pleasant 
and  full  of  delight  between  us,  hope  giving 
me  buoyancy.  Then,  in  waves  of  depres- 
sion, in  which  I  suffered  much,  I  would  be 
more  silent  and  less  in  sympathy  with  her. 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

She  grieved,  seemingly  for  me,  not  for  her- 
self. Yet  I  loved  her  through  all  my 
moods — always. 

I  did  not  blame  her  reserve  or  feel  that 
she  was  wrong.  There  was  nothing  small 
or  ignoble  in  the  character  of  Elizabeth, 
nor  was  she  given  to  the  coquetries  of 
ordinary  women.  She  never  put  on  "  war 
paint"  to  divert  my  mind  or  attract  me 
from  something  nearly  touching  her;  tears 
to  her  were  folly;  anything  but  the  truth 
was  idle.  In  fact  her  habit,  from  her  jus- 
tice and  an  imperious  spirit,  was  to  tell 
hard,  bald  truths  without  hesitation,  when  a 
kindlier,  shiftier  nature  would  have  glossed 
the  pill. 

Still  her  nature  was  joyous  and  given  to 
laughter — mirth,  not  humor.  She  diffused 
brightness  and  happiness  like  a  perfume 
from  a  lovely  flower,  or,  rather,  it  was  like 

the  pinkish  blush   of   sunrise  over  snow- 
140 


DAWN 

covered  hillsides.  Her  instinct  and  mind 
grasped  the  full  meaning  of  common 
troubles,  and  she  saw  beyond  the  clouds 
to  the  blue.  She  knew  me  better  than  I 
knew  myself — my  moods  and  my  trend  of 
thought. 

Perhaps  she  felt,  rather  than  defined,  the 
change  wrought  in  me,  partly  by  her  kiss 
and  partly  by  her  story.  The  sudden  rise 
of  a  passion  of  youth  and  the  tide  of  jeal- 
ousy which  had  swept  me  from  our  old 
moorings,  she  saw,  no  doubt,  as  I  did  not. 
To  her  this  was  unnatural  and  unpleasant, 
therefore  she  had  warned  me  as  delicately 
and  deeply  as  she  could. 

Her  kindness  to  me  and  care  of  my 
mental  wants  did  not  cease ;  rather  she 
tried  to  help  me  conquer  myself.  When 
she  took  my  hand  at  times  she  held  it, 
or  she  stroked  my  hair,  or  laughingly 

pinched  my  cheek — great  familiarities  for 
141 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

her,   though  nothing  for  me  who  desired 
all. 

Sitting  on  the  arm  of  my  chair  with  her 
hand  on  my  shoulder,  her  face  a  glory  to 
me,  I  lifted  my  lips  towards  her.  "Kiss 
me,"  I  begged. 

Her  mood,  her  desire  to  do  so,  I  felt  in 
the  moisture  of  her  eyes,  the  glow  on  her 
cheeks,  and  the  intense  expression.  She 
did  not  struggle  against  my  arm  that  was 
around  her  waist,  drawing  her  to  me.  I 
knew  she  wanted  to  come  to  me,  but 
could  not.  Her  head  slowly  moved  back 
and  forth,  saying,  "  No." 

"If  I  am  not  loyal,"  she  said  sadly, 
"  how  could  you  expect  loyalty?  "  Then 
smiling,  as  if  her  heart  were  on  her  lips, 
"  That  desire,  you  have  told  me,  has  no 
length  of  life.  It  will  die,  and  you  will 

be  happy  again." 

142 


DAWN 

"  Sin  just  once  and  see  how  sweet  it  is." 

"  That  too,  you  said,  was  only  the  affair 
of  a  moment  and  no  real  matter  in  our 
lives.  It  is  the  first  step  which  counts,  my 
friend.  You  do  not  tempt  me.  I  am  only 
sorry  for  you." 

Yet  she  did  not  move  away  or  take  her- 
self from  my  arm,  as  was  her  wont.  I 
could  feel  her  heart  strongly  beat  against 
my  side,  and  her  smile  of  toleration  did 
not  deceive  me,  close  as  was  her  face  to 
mine,  steadily  looking  at  me.  She  thought 
she  was  merely  consoling  me,  while  I  felt 
sure  that  unknowingly  her  nature  was  drink- 
ing of  the  same  cup. 

I  kissed  her.  It  was  only  a  touch  on 
her  lips,  an  attempt,  before  she  was  out  of 
my  arm,  regions  away  from  me.  "  It  was 
a  return  of  your  salute,"  I  cried,  fearing 
an  outbreak  of  anger,  and  I  laughed  aloud. 

She  could  not  resist  that,  and  laughed 
i43 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

too.  But  the  evil  had  been  done,  and 
thereafter  she  was  as  silent  and  wary  as  a 
doe.  I  could  no  longer  approach  her  with 
the  old  ease,  nor  did  she  try  to  fathom  or 
soften  my  distress.  Her  anger  did  not 
come  out  in  a  rebuke  of  manner  or  words, 
but  seemed  to  grow  in  herself  as  she  pon- 
dered the  scene  and  felt  its  meaning  to 
herself.  She  held  aloof  from  me  with  a 
careful  guard  of  any  outward  touch  or  sign 
of  our  feeling — helping  our  weakness  as 
she  felt  it  to  be. 

This  led  to  a  comparative  separation 
between  us  and  to  her  seeking  the  society 
of  my  sister,  leaving  me  alone,  as  she 
wished  to  be. 

A  prosaic  period,  a  calm  came  to  our 
intercourse,  as  the  summer  hurried  on  with 
burning  feet.  Ghosts  of  beauty  long  dead 
did  not  appear  in  the  mist-whirls  of  the 
night.  The  dry  leaves  rattled  in  the  puffs 


DAWN 

of  wind,  insect-stung  fruit  dropped  at  sud- 
den intervals  from  the  boughs  of  the  pear 
trees.  Vulgar  sparrows  cheeped  in  the 
branches.  Stale,  odious  realism  stripped 
everything  of  value  and  quality. 

"Where  was  this  George?"  became  a 
mania  with  me.  "What  had  become  of 
him?  What  place  did  he  fill?  Was  he 
alive?  Was  he  dead,  or  worse?"  became 
constant  questions  in  my  mind. 

I  dare  not  tell  her  of  my  efforts,  nor  ask 
her  for  details  which  would  have  led  me  in 
the  search  for  him.  I  could  not  find  him, 
or  any  trace  of  him,  by  the  secret  means  I 
used,  and  I  began  to  feel  that  he  had  passed 
out  of  existence  in  our  world,  or  that  he 
was  dead.  If  I  could  prove  that  he  no 
longer  lived,  there  was  a  hope  that  Eliza- 
beth would  feel  that  at  least  she  was 
divorced  from  this  ideal  of  her  youth. 
The  hope  of  finding  him  or  of  proving 
i45 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

his    death   buoyed    me    through   this   dark 
period. 

Her  sweetness,  at  times,  as  if  against 
her  will,  led  me  to  hope.  I  felt  she  would 
forget.  Indeed,  flashes  of  feeling  showed 
she  loved  me,  as  I  would  have  her,  although 
this  may  have  been  my  imagination.  Then 
she  would  grow  cross — a  sign  of  recovery 
to  health. 

"  Why  don't  you  talk  as  you  used  to 
about  men  and  women  ?  What  has  become 
of  your  new  laws  for  the  regeneration  of  the 
earth?  "  she  asked. 

"Theory  is  not  practice.  I  find  that 
sinners  must  first  be  converted,"  smiling 
at  her. 

"  I'm  a  hard-shell  Baptist.  Immersion 
has  done  its  perfect  work,"  she  laughed. 

"  Oh,  you  may  yet  be  saved  by  fire." 

"  Perhaps — if  you  make  it  hot  enough." 
146 


III.— THE    BROKEN    REED 

A  SMALL  dragon's-blood 
vase,  the  work  of  the  Rook- 
wood  Pottery,  stood  on  the 
table  in  the  center  of  the  room 
back  of  where  we  usually  sat  at 
the  two  windows.  The  lamp, 
lighted  in  the  cooler  nights  of 
autumn,  made  the  vase  glow  like  a  scarlet 
poppy  in  the  sun.  The  hereditary  love  of 
color  in  Elizabeth  was  always  moved  in 
ecstasy  over  this  vase.  As  far  as  her  bars 
of  restraint  let  her,  she  would  quietly,  but 
full  of  feeling,  say  it  was  beautiful  for 
itself,  not  from  association  or  age. 

In  her  heart  she  longed  for  a  bit  of  the 
original  ware  and  idealized  it  in  compari- 
son with  that  I  had  given  her.  She  had 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

never  seen  a  true  piece  of  the  ancient  make, 
nor  was  my  temper  or  judgment  willing  to 
P'lease  her.  The  past  had  to  her  a  poetry 
the  present  could  not  excite.  She  felt 
about  George  as  if  he  were  the  Chinese, 
and  about  me  as  if  I  were  the  Rookwood. 
The  one  she  had  was  dwarfed  by  the  one 
she  imagined  to  be  the  more  beautiful. 

"It  may  be,"  I  thought,  "  that  he  was 
a  perfect  genuine  piece  from  nature's  kiln. 
It  is  possible  the  glow,  the  exquisite  tint 
of  red,  the  soft  texture  which  makes  one 
wish  to  smooth  it  as  you  do  the  fur  of  a 
cat,  the  quality  refined  and  moving  as  in  a 
poem,  which  marks  the  rare  dragon's-blood 
vase,  was  his  quality  among  men." 

"  He  is  a  counterfeit  in  form  and  glaze. 
The  Rookwood  vase  at  least  makes  no  pre- 
tense to  be  other  than  a  real,  a  beautiful 
piece.  It  is  no  copy  of  the  Chinese, 

though  a  rival,"  I  felt. 
148 


DAWN 

The  color  of  our  vase  pleased  me  as  a 
flower  would,  and  moved  me  in  a  like  way. 
It  seemed  to  express  the  emotion  of  youth- 
ful love.  Its  tone  and  meaning  came  to 
be  a  symbol  of  the  suddenly  born  and  ab- 
sorbing passion  of  the  body,  though  not  as 
fleeting.  We  called  it  "  The  Sweetheart," 
as  if  it  were  a  love  token. 

I  had  taken  it  from  the  cabinet  and  put 
it  on  the  table  in  hope  that  the  light  might 
bring  out  its  beauty,  and  that  it  might 
speak  to  her  of  love.  Her  poetical  in- 
stinct was  deep,  and  she  knew  as  if  I  had 
told  her,  in  words  or  songs  or  the  harmo- 
nies of  an  orchestra,  the  meaning  of  that 
symbol  and  why  it  shone.  It  failed  to 
move  her,  to  soften  her  heart :  though  I 
often  caught  her  gazing  at  its  brilliancy  and 
no  doubt  thinking  of  what  she  might  lose. 

I  took  it  away  after  a  few  nights,  out  of 

its  mockery.     This  was  my  first  backward 
149 


REGRET   OF  SPRING 

step,  or  rather  halt,  in  my  long  seeking  of 
her.  When  she  saw  it  was  gone,  she 
eagerly  asked,  "Where's  the  Sweetheart? 
Who  has  moved  our  key-note?"  looking 
intently  at  me  as  if  to  fathom  my  meaning. 

"  I  have  always  told  you,"  I  replied, 
"  nothing  is  too  beautiful  not  to  grow  tire- 
some. Most  of  us  only  learn  the  value  of  a 
thing  after  its  death." 

"  But  I  believe  in  a  constant  resurrection 
in  this  life." 

"As  good  fish ?" 

"  You  grow  commonplace,  James  ;  I  do 
not  understand  you." 

"  No,"  I  answered.  "  My  eyes  begin 
to  see  and  my  ears  to  hear. ' ' 

Not  heeding  this,  or,  at  least,  not  showing 
that  she  did,  she  went  to  the  case  and 
brought  back  the  vase.  "There!"  she 
said;  "  I  decree  it  shall  stand  here  as  a 

peace-keeper." 

150 


DAWN 

"  Take  it  back,  please,"  I  said,  in  a  low, 
quiet  tone,  though  doubtless  it  was  to  her 
ears  hard  and  firm.  "  Put  it  where  I  wish 
it." 

She  stared  at  me,  half  started  to  leave 
the  room,  moved  her  hand  towards  the  vase 
and  drew  it  away  again. 

"  Do  you  mean —  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  I  nodded,  looking  squarely  in 
her  eyes.  The  battle  of  our  wills  was 
fought  in  a  look,  without  a  word,  and  was 
soon  over.  She  quietly  replaced  the  vase 
where  she  had  found  it.  Her  cheeks  and 
throat  were  red  as  they  might  have  been 
when  she  blushed  in  her  youth. 

"Sit  down,"  I  said.  "Let  me  tell 
you  of  an  incident  which  happened  to  me 
to-day.  You  remember,  for  I've  often 
talked  over  the  '  ifs  and  ands,'  the  fruits, 
the  deeds  of  the  blond  beauty  who  prac- 
tically ruined  my  business  life?  " 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  I  remember —  '  she  answered  quietly, 

and  sat  down. 

"  Well,  he  came  to  see  me  to-day." 
"You  could  still  punish  him?  " 
"Yes,  I  have  saved  the  evidence." 
"You  had  him  arrested,   surely.      You 

struck  him  for  his  base  ingratitude?"  she 

excitedly  asked. 

"  I  did  not.     There  was  no  good  to  him 

or  to  me  in  such  a  course." 

"But   you   have  always  talked  of  your 

Indian   revenge   and   never   forgetting   an 

injury.     This  was  deep  enough  for  any  man 

to  remember." 

"  Only  to  blows  at  the  heart,  only  when 

the  pride  of  love, — then  I  turn  and  never 

go  back  or  forget. 

"He  was  not   an   object   of   pity,"    I 

went  on.     "The  tramp  or  '  broken  reed  ' 

you   would  expect  was   not   in   evidence. 

He  seemed  prosperous  and  happy,  though 
152 


DAWN 

his  eyes  and  lips  showed  he  came  in  sor- 
row and  penitence.  There  was  no  talk  of 
restitution.  What  would  the  money  do  to 
bring  back  the  lost  years  or  the  tears  or  the 
broken  pride?  " 

"  Did  you  tell  him  of  how  many  lives  he 
had  brought  almost  to  poverty,  of  your  sac- 
rifices since  then?  Oh,  James  !  "  she  cried. 

"  Yes.  I  told  him  all.  Then  I  forgave 
him.  It  seemed  the  manly  thing  to  do. 
But,  'Beth,  I  could  not  shake  the  hand  he 
put  out  to  me.  That  was  above  my  cour- 
age." 

She  only  looked  at  me  steadily,  though 
I  felt  she  might  have  said  something.  It 
was  no  matter,  for  I  had  merely  acted  on 
impulse. 

The   next   evening  she   wore    her   fichu 
about  her  neck  and  shoulders,  evidently  to 
advise  me  there  was  sympathy  for  a  troubled 
heart.     It  was  her  widow's  weeds. 
i53 


IV.— THE    RING 

IN  the  hands  of  most 
novel  writers  the  whip  is  the  chief 
weapon  used  to  drive  women  back 
the  fold  of  love,  as  it  is 
the  current  belief 
among  men.  These 
authors  who  have 
acutely  studied  hu- 
man nature,  until 
they  have  made  a 
science  without  poetry  or  charm,  seemingly 
follow  tradition  in  a  rut ;  they  draw  the 
characters  of  women  in  certain  phases  or 
aberrations  of  love  as  governed  by  neglect 
or  scorn,  or,  on  the  lower  plane  of  life,  by 
blows  moral  and  physical.  This  may  be 
true  of  ordinary  women,  and  men  as  well, 
155 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

whom  fear  or  ungratified  desire  rules,  as  it 
does  animals,  yet  who  from  their  monotony 
should  seldom  be  the  models  of  fiction. 

I  should  as  soon  have  thought  of  striking 
a  lion  as  morally  to  strike  Elizabeth,  or  to 
hope  to  win  her  by  rudeness,  or  to  try  to 
make  her  yield  by  a  surly  absence.  She  was 
my  equal,  for  the  most  part,  both  in  mind 
and  heart,  and  in  some  ways  far  my  better.  I 
smiled  to  myself  at  the  thought  of  treating 
her  with  indifference,  or  of  showing  her  a 
lack  of  esteem  and  respect.  If  I  had  gone 
away  from  her,  thinking  she  would  ache  at 
the  gap,  I  should  have  received  my  due 
reward  in  her  contempt.  Her  mind  was 
clear  to  analyze  motives,  and  she  read 
character  by  an  instinct  I  had  not.  A  pre- 
tended absence  would  not  have  aided  me. 

Then,  too,  in  that  case,  it  would  have 
taken  more  bravery  and  manliness  to  go 
than  to  stay.  Even  had  I  imagined  the 
156 


DAWN 

means  would  have  gained  the  end,  I  could 
not  have  descended  to  use  them.  Love 
sharpened  my  wits  to  hunt  for  a  weak  link, 
but  it  was  not  there. 

In  connection  with  our  wide  and  rapid 
reading,  this  question  of  a  man's  beat- 
ing a  woman  into  love  for  him  had  been 
suggested  and  fully  talked  over.  It  was 
a  boyish  pique,  or  it  was  brutish.  She 
knew  too  well  that  I  loved,  ever  to  be 
changed  in  feeling  by  my  going  off  in 
anger.  A  withdrawal  of  my  love,  a  ceasing 
of  constant  attentions,  a  sinking  of  my 
esteem  for  her  she  would  feel,  but  not 
anger  or  insult  or  purposeful  neglect. 

"  I  had  rather  have  style  than  be  a  Chris- 
tian," I  observed,  moved  by  that  quality 
in  a  book  I  was  reading. 

"  Well,  you  write  in  a  most  unchristian 
style,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh,  and  then 
earnestly  :  "  But  I  love  the  way  you  write. 
157 


REGRET   OF  SPRING 

It  goes  deep,  fits  the  subject  and  has  the 
thrill.  If  you  had  used  the  simplest  grind- 
stone when  you  began — 

"  Always  the  might  have  been,  the  cart 
before  the  horse,"  I  said.  "  The  impulse 
now  moves  in  me  to  go  back  to  my  old  love 
and  once  more  try  to  write,  just  as  a  drunk- 
ard goes  back." 

She  turned  quickly  towards  me,  looked 
inquiringly,  and  without  referring  to  my 
last  remark,  said:  "You  have  character, 
which  they  say  is  style." 

"  Yes,  I  have  character,  but  not  beauty, 
either  of  style  or  body.  You  have  beauty 
of  eyes  and  feature  and  form." 

"  Nonsense,"  and  she  blushed  as  she 
went  on  :  "  Nothing  is  so  decadent  as  cack- 
ling compliments." 

"  I  think  you  are — I  never — I  tell  the 
truth  just  as  I  feel  it.  You  always  seemed 
to  be  pained  to  be  told  you  are  beautiful. 
158 


DAWN 

You  must  have  been  superb  in  your  youth. 
I  know  you  were  taught  not  to  speak  of 
such  things,  and  that  to  hear  them  was  a 
sin.  Puritan  !  demure  Puritan  that  you 
are  !  Nevertheless  it  is  true,  you  are  beau- 
tiful. It  matters  little  to  me,  you  know." 

"  Nor  to  any  one,"  she  replied  with  some 
asperity.  "  Such  fulsome  conceit  about 
one's  looks  is  unpleasant.  It  is  the  pride 
which  leads  to  a  fall.  James,  how  can  you 
say  such  things  !  "  and  she  hid  her  face  in 
her  handkerchief. 

"It  is  true," -I  said  again.  "  You  are 
a  noble-looking,  beautiful  woman.  Your 
profile  is  as  fine  as  a  Greek  intaglio.  Old 
as  you  are,  the  curves  of  your  body  are 
subtle  and  entrancing,  and  the  maiden- 
like innocence  and  softness  of  your  face 
hides  your  years." 

With  her  head  in  her  hands  she  leaned 
on  the  sill  of  the  window,  and  I  knew  the 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

rare  tears  were  dimming  her  eyes.  "  Stop  ! 
oh,  stop!"  she  begged  in  a  wavering 
voice. 

"  Why  should  I  not  speak  of  that  all 
men  see  and  have  seen  through  your  life? 
None  of  them  have  dared  to  break  through 
your  ghostly,  aristocratic,  monastic  reserve. 
I  speak  in  calmness  and  without  a  bit  of 
selfishness  in  me.  You  deny  me,  too.  You 
do  not  care  for  those  simple  joys  or  pure 
pleasures  of  the  sight.  Your  love  of  beauty 
is  cant  or  formulas.  Wear  your  habit  of 
widowhood.  I  merely  say  what  I  think. 
You  are  Hellenic  in  mind  as  well  as  in 
body ;  I  cannot  conceive  why  you  scoff  at 
and  reject  the  truth." 

Instinctively  I  knew  that  she  felt  that 
what  I  said  was  true  to  me.  Yes,  and  that 
she  herself  knew  she  was  beautiful.  Her 
beauty,  if  not  in  its  perfection  to-day, 

yet   no   doubt   she   felt   that   it  was  like 
1 60 


DAWN 

a  defaced  statue  of  Hellas  which  still 
breathed  out  a  soul. 

In  her  idealism  she  had  tried  to  burn  to  a 
husk  the  realism  of  the  body,  had  slimed  it 
with  a  base  sense  of  wrong.  The  beauty 
of  form,  the  loveliness  of  color,  the  divine 
air  of  the  body  which  shone  from  her  and 
about  her  as  from  a  goddess — all  this  she 
denied  as  she  would  have  done  the  Devil. 

Still  she  was  a  woman.  Through  her 
nun's  hood  and  cloak,  through  her  false, 
misty  aspirations,  the  blood  of  her  nature 
throbbed  in  her  veins,  driving  her  to  shel  • 
ter,  to  cover  from  me — from  herself. 

Perhaps  no  man  ever  before  had  voiced 
to  her  craving,  starving  ears  this  story  of 
her  great  beauty.  The  eyes  of  men  may 
have  spoken.  Their  waves  of  pause  or 
turning  after  her  when  they  met  her  :  their 
suggestions  of  deference  and  interest :  their 

excited  and  colored  words  must  have  told 
161 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

her  she  was  admired — or  women  may  even 
have  said  so.  Men  never  said  plainly  to 
her,  "  You  are  beautiful." 

"  George  could  not  have  praised  her  for 
her  great  beauty.  He  had  not  learned  the 
tongue.  It  was  not  the  part  he  played. 
Perhaps  she  only  came  late  to  her  heritage." 

She  no  longer  protested  at  my  praise, 
nor  did  she  reply  when  she  had  gained 
mastery  of  her  emotions.  She  treated  me 
with  silence,  and  seemed  in  a  maze. 

"  Let  me  see  your  hand,"  I  said.  At 
which,  after  some  mental  hesitation,  she 
held  it  out,  palm  down  and  at  arm's  length. 

"  Deny,  if  you  dare,  that  it  is  expressive 
and  lovely  in  shape.  It  is  fine,"  I  said, 
with  force,  going  over  to  her. 

She  critically  looked  at  her  hand,  as  if 
it  was  a  new  thing  in  her  eyes,  and  spoke 
regretfully :  "  For  the  work  it  has  done,  it 

has  held  its  shape  well." 
162 


DAWN 

I  took  it  in  my  hand,  pulling  the  long, 
taper  fingers  apart,  turning  it  over,  as  calm 
in  my  manner  as  if  judging  a  purchase  at 
a  stall. 

"  You  seem  to  have  worn  no  rings. 
Have  you  no  such  treasures?  Do  you  not 
care  for  them?  " 

She  smiled  without  mirth  :  "  No  one 
ever  thought  I  cared.  Yet  I  am  passion- 
ately fond  of  jewels.  They  seem  to  have 
an  actual  life,  though  different  from  ours. 
Night  and  day  they  speak — always  true, 
bright  friends." 

"  I  imagined,  to  go  without  them  was  a 
part  of  the  discipline  you  practise." 

"  You  grow  hard  in  your  satire.  To  me 
they  should  be  the  gifts  of  love  and  friend- 
ship, and  not  bought  by  one's  self  for  their 
value  or  for  vanity.  There  was  no  hidden 
reason,"  she  replied. 

"  When  I  was  young  I  had  a  fancy  for 
163 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

stones.  There  is  a  lot  of  them  I  have 
locked  away.  Some  of  them  I  inherited. 
You  remember  how  many  trinkets  Sister 
has?  My  share  is  buried  in  the  Safety 
Vault." 

"Yes.  You  should  have  given  them  to 
her." 

"  No.  They  were  kept  for  my  possible 
wife,  and  so  bequeathed — a  fading  hope. 
There  are  other  jewels,  though ;  I  care  but 
little  for  them  of  late  years.  Look  at  this 
one,"  handing  her  a  ring  which  I  took 
from  my  pocket. 

"Oh,  how  fine,"  she  exclaimed,  like  a 
delighted  child.  "What  rare  lustre. 
They  are  of  the  first  water. ' ' 

The  stones  were  two  "Blue  River" 
brilliants  setting  off  a  ruby.  I  had  rubbed 
and  scratched  the  setting  to  make  it  look 
old  and  worn.  It  had  been  carefully  se- 
lected and  bought  for  her. 
164 


DAWN 

She  tried  the  ring,  saying,  "  Why,  it  fits 
me,"  then  quickly  took  it  off. 

"  Elizabeth,  the  new  proverb  is,  more 
blessed  to  receive  than  give,"  I  said, 
smiling  and  indifferent  in  my  way,  to 
aid  her  to  do  what  I  knew  her  heart  de- 
sired, her  senses  craved,  but  her  education 
forbade. 

"  I  cannot,  James.  Such  a  beautiful 
and  rare  ring.  I  have  in  all  my  life  re- 
fused," she  replied,  tremblingly. 

"You  will  to  please  me!  Keep  that 
ring,"  I  said,  soberly,  and  as  if  there  were 
no  further  question. 

"I  will  if  you  feel  so,"  she  replied, 
closing  her  hand  over  it.  I  drew  back  the 
fingers  and  took  it  from  her,  and  started  to 
put  it  on  her  finger.  She  snatched  her 
hand  away.  "  Not  that  way,  dear.  It 
has  too  deep  a  meaning,"  she  exclaimed. 

"  Put  it  on  your  own  way.  Some  day, 
165 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

'Beth,  some  day  it  will  be  a  treasure  to  you. 
When,  I  know  not.  Some  day  you  will 
idly  turn  and  turn  it  on  your  finger,  and  the 
door  of  your  conscience  will  open  in  a 
flash.  Then  you  will  see  as  I  would  have 
you  see  to-day,  and  your  heart  will  ache  to 
recall  the  past.  Oh,  I  do  not  mean  to  be 
sentimental.  It  is  only  the  logic  of  it  all 
— the  sure  sense  you  will  some  day  know 
and  feel  what  you  have  lost." 

She  smiled,  held  out  her  hand,  and  said  : 
"  I  thank  you.  It  will  always  be  a  joy  to 
me,  as  you  have  always  been,  my  dear 
friend.  I  do  not  fear.  I  shall  not  lose 
that." 

Then,  though  it  was  yet  early  in  the  even- 
ing, and  though  my  tongue  was  unloosed 
for  a  time  from  its  clamp  of  reserve,  and 
though  there  was  now  much  promise  of  a 
better  feeling,  of  at  least  more  mirth,  she 

did  not  stay,  but  said  "Goodnight,"  linger- 
166 


DAWN 

ingly,  as  a  child  might  when  bedtime  had 
come  all  too  soon.  I  thought  after  she 
had  gone  that  she  wished  to  retire  to  her 
cell  to  gloat  over  the  diamonds,  or  to  heal 
the  wounds  of  my  words,  or  to  store  bolts 
of  wrath  against  me. 

Some  expiation,  evidently,  troubled  her 
soul,  to  be  seen  later  in  the  farther  tilt 
aside  of  her  head  and  the  honey  tone  of 
her  voice.  She  was  bright  and  sweet  and 
more  glowing,  yet  her  fence  of  restraint 
had  been  raised  higher  than  it  had  stood 
before. 

"  Sins  of  the  body  and  pride  must  be 
paid  like  other  moral  debts.  To  me  she 
holds  a  glassy  air  which  merely  reflects  my 
outer  self." 

A    mist   or   haze   came  between  us,  no 

doubt,  because  my  fire  began  to  go  down. 

It  was   more   smoky.      I,   too,    had   pride. 

When  she  suggested  a  Wagner  concert,  I 

167 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

said,  "We  have  often  heard  the  selections. 
Unless  you  care  very  much — 

"Oh,  no;  just  as  you  like,"  she  replied. 

"  You  know,  you  once  thought  that  Nor- 
dau  was  right  in  declaring  Wagner  to  be  a 
degenerate.  You  remember  how  his  music 
caused  evil  thoughts  in  you — envy,  anger, 
ill-nature,  rebellion,  and  disgust — sensual, 
you  called  it." 

"  But  you  think  it  more  religious  than 
a  mass — more  soul-inspiring.  You  have 
taught  me  how  thoughtful  his  music  is,  how 
noble  and  beautiful." 

"His  themes  are  the  primitive,  pure 
emotions  of  man,  untainted  by  church  or  by 
convention.  To-night  he  sings  of  love.  I 
had  better  not  go,  for  fear  I  kneel  in  my 
heart — in  tears." 

"As  you  will,"  she  replied,  leaving  me 
with  a  haughty  toss  of  the  head.  "  I  only 

thought  to  please  you.     I  am  indifferent." 
168 


V.— THE    VISION 


VITALITY  and  repose  are 
the  qualities  which  inspire 
me  in  all  art  creations. 
These  vital  evidences  of 
nobility  and  of  beauty 
are  also  the  attributes  in 
woman  which  thrill  me. 
Vivacity  is  charm- 
ing, grace  alluring, 
and  sweetness  en- 
trancing, but  they 
live  only  for  a 
moment.  The 
intense  deeper 
spirit  of  life  beams  always  from  the  step, 
the  tongue,  the  eye.  It  is  an  overflowing 

fountain  from  the  heart,  brain,  and  body 
169 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

which  divinely  outpours  its  gift.  And  re- 
pose seems  born  of  a  knowledge  of  this 
abundance  of  power,  giving  restfulness  and 
confidence  of  extreme  ability. 

It  was  this  vitality  in  pose  and  walk, 
the  cheeriness  and  the  laugh  of  Elizabeth, 
which  pleased  me.  Though  at  all  times 
she  hid  her  real  nature  from  the  world,  the 
vigor  and  lightness  of  her  thought  and 
movement  seemed  to  me  a  perpetual  youth. 
The  feeling  she  stirred  in  me  was  akin  to 
that  which  springs  from  the  beauty  and 
strength  of  the  "  Wingless  Victory." 

Her  hand,  when  tightly  held,  sent  at 
times  through  my  arm,  even  to  the  shoul- 
der, a  tingling  current  of  which  she  was 
unconscious.  Her  voice  had  lost  none 
of  its  fullness,  or  clearness  of  outline,  or 
sympathy.  Age  had  not  withered  its  fine 
timbre. 

Her    mind    leaped    to    a    meaning   or 
170 


DAWN 

thought,  skipped  the  needless  details.  Life 
in  her  company  was  a  hundred  times  longer 
than  with  one  to  whom  it  was  always  a 
weary  constant  explanation  as  to  which 
was  North. 

An  all-capable,  unused,  restrained  power, 
such  as  Paderewski  imparts  when  he  plays, 
seemed  to  radiate  from  her  figure  in  motion 
or  at  rest,  though  any  self-conscious  effort 
was  absent.  Her  tone,  unflurried,  restful, 
carried  the  same  impressions  of  her  beauty. 
She  seemed  to  be  able  to  mother  the  world 
on  her  bosom. 

This  superabundance  of  life  she  cloaked 
from  every  one,  even  herself,  by  a  restrained 
manner  and  a  pretence  of  age.  Only  the 
eyes  of  love  could  see  beyond  and  within; 
see,  too,  her  acts  of  self-denial — the  yoke 
she  wore. 

Her  whole  being  and  life,   her  beauty 

and  worth,  my  mind  told  over  again  and 
171 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

again,  pleading  with  my  heart  not  to  give 
her  up,  but  without  effect.  My  reserve 
became  deeper.  I  went  steadily  on,  laps- 
ing into  the  old,  worn-out  field  in  which  I 
dwelt  when  she  came. 

Meanwhile  I  yielded  my  outer  manner 
in  response  to  her  sallies  or  touches  of  feel- 
ing. She  was  happy  over  the  jewels  :  she 
would  have  heard  again,  "  You  are  beauti- 
ful." My  pride,  however,  was  in  rebel- 
lion. I  was  jealous  ;  besides,  I  felt  hope- 
less. The  old  manner  or  sympathy  I  could 
not  affect,  nor  could  I  conceal  my  feelings 
except  by  a  quiet,  kindly  indifference,  a 
quitting  of  all  temptation. 

Within  me  the  threads  of  our  past  life 
seemed  to  be  swung  round  and  round, 
cocoon-weaving:  my  heart  to  be  hiding 
away  a  precious  seed;  a  period  of  happi- 
ness passing  to  the  stage  of  memory. 

With  all  her  freedom  and  will  to  speak 
172 


DAWN 

the  hard  truth,  she  was  very  sensitive  to 
any  fault-finding.  Her  years  of  struggle 
to  walk  exactly  on  the  line  of  duty  gave 
her  a  sense  of  perfection.  She  was  hurt  at 
any  "  You  did  wrong  "  which  I  might  say 
to  her. 

Perhaps  she  felt  my  reserve,  missed  my 
old  way  of  watching  her  every  want,  and 
speaking  through  my  eyes,  and  she  re- 
belled at  the  lack.  Or  she  may  have  been 
angry  at  what  I  had  said,  or  her  own  mood 
may  have  caused  the  air  of  restraint.  Her 
reticence  gave  me  no  signs  of  what  she 
thought  or  felt,  nor  did  I  have  the  courage 
to  try  to  analyze  her  feeling.  It  would 
not  matter. 

What  she  often  said  in  jest  about  my 
ways  had  now  become  serious.  Her  view 
of  me  had  changed  from  white  to  black. 
"  You  are  smoking  too  much,  my  friend," 
she  remarked  one  evening.  The  air,  as  it 
173 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

always  seemed  to  do,  had  carried  the  smoke 
of  my  pipe  towards  her,  like  incense 
burned  before  a  graven  image.  The  carnal 
heart  or  body  was  to  her  a  hyena.  She 
waged  a  blind  war  against  it  in  others,  not 
only  by  example  but  by  expressing  the 
truth — "  tract  distributing,"  as  it  were. 

Did  I  tell  her,  as  I  often  had  done,  of  the 
uses  and  pleasures  of  tobacco,  she  would 
smile  and  retort :  "  Are  you  not  just  as 
well  without  it?  Are  you  not  better  for 
ruling  your  appetite?  " 

"  No,"  I  replied  with  indignation. 
"  There  is  some  subtle  nerve  food  in  to- 
bacco science  has  not  yet  discovered. 
Why,  its  almost  universal  use  is,  in  a  way, 
your  one  argument  for  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,"  and  I  puffed  the  clouds  in 
proof  of  my  belief. 

"  You  need  not  lose  your  temper.  That 
is  a  proof  you  deceive  yourself,"  she 


DAWN 

said,  moving  away  from  that  sublimation 
of  thought  and  feeling — the  smoke  of  a 
pipe. 

Her  critical  sense  of  my  acts — of  this 
customary  one  chiefly — only  darted  at  me 
like  sparks  of  electricity  when  her  bat- 
teries of  opposition  were  charged.  At 
other  times  she  rather  drew  into  the  mist 
as  if  to  breathe  my  atmosphere.  There 
was  no  fault  found  then  with  that  "  petty 
vice "  by  which  I  "  lowered  my  higher 
nature. ' ' 

"  At  least  you  will  confess  that  smoking 
employs  the  body,  giving  free  play  to  the 
mind  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  see  that  it  deadens  the  will-power, 
makes  men  willing  to  pass  in  silence  the 
evils  in  the  world.  The  Greeks  did  not 
smoke,  and  yet  they  were,  you  say,  the 
highest  type  of  intelligence  and  beauty." 

"Ah,"  I  exclaimed,  "their bodies  were 
i75 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

free.  Their  instincts  did  not  make  them 
mad.  They  were  not  forced  to  narcotize 
their  desires.  Freedom  killed,  utterly 
brushed  aside  what  you  imprison  and,  by 
denial,  breed  into  the  sin  of  the  world. 
Banish  sex,  Elizabeth,  before  you  prohibit 
tobacco."  I  spoke  loudly,  aroused  by  a 
self-denial  that  would  reach  every  appetite 
of  the  body. 

"  The  Turks  who  wall  in  their  odalisques, 
who  mask  their  iniquity  by  prisons  and 
silence,  or  the  Indians  whose  squaws  feed 
and  clothe  the  men,  thus  keeping  them  in 
prideful  idleness,  are  your  smokers.  They, 
then,  are  the  models  of  human  creatures 
whom  you  would  have  us  follow,"  she  said 
coolly,  but  full  of  indignation  at  my 
thought  and  tone. 

My  impression  was,  as  she  started  to  her 
feet,  that  her  impulse  would  lead  her  to 

leave  the  room.     I  did  not  doubt  the  shock 
176 


DAWN 

to  her  modesty  of  the  bald  statement  I  had 
made,  and  my  manner,  which  showed  how 
strongly  I  felt,  had  moved  her  to  fly.  But 
her  courage  and  her  senses  held  her  back 
until  anger  and  desire  to  conquer  me  turned 
her  will. 

Again  she  came  to  my  side,  and  quietly, 
without  a  word,  took  the  pipe  from  my 
mouth  and  placed  it  on  the  rack.  I  looked 
to  see  her  throw  it  into  the  blaze  of  the 
soft-coal  fire. 

At  that  I  smiled,  and  watched  the  grace- 
ful pose  she  took,  the  dignity,  the  force 
and  power,  the  glow  of  her  cheeks  and  the 
flash  of  her  eyes.  Indeed  she  was  a  royal 
vision  when  moved  by  anger  or  delight  to 
forget  herself.  She  walked  back  to  her 
chair  as  if  nothing  had  occurred,  although 
her  head  was  held  stiff  and  her  step  was 
decided. 

This    encounter,    in    olden    days,    and 
177 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

among  men,  might  have  been  a  duel  to  the 
end.  There  was  hidden  in  our  words  about 
a  simple  habit  the  clash  of  the  two  prin- 
ciples of  living,  Greek  and  Puritan. 

"You  always  look  at  the  outside,  the 
objective  in  nature  or  creature.  Women 
are  but  curves  and  color  in  your  eyes,"  she 
said  with  scorn. 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  eagerly  replied,  naturally 
lighting  a  cigar.  I  had  forgotten  the  start 
of  our  dispute,  and  was  ready  to  discourse 
on  the  physical  beauty  of  women.  "The 
fountain  of  inspiration  in  all  art  and  the 
most  beautiful  thing  in  nature  is  the  body 
of  a  woman. ' ' 

"Let  us  drop  the  subject  hereafter, 
please,"  she  said  haughtily,  trying  to  stop 
the  flow  of  my  ideas. 

"  Art  is  the  only  mistress  who  always 
smiles.  Her  arms  are  ever  open  to  give 

sympathy,  to  hide  and  heal  our  wounds," 

178 


DAWN 

I  said  in  an  injured  tone,  and  clinging  in 
my  speech  to  the  style  of  discourse  still 
wetting  my  tongue. 

"But  art  has  no  body,  no  senses,"  she 
quickly  replied. 

"  It  has  them  all — glorified.  A  beauti- 
ful statue  is  not  cold  stone  to  any  one  who 
will  hear  and  feel.  It  is  the  fruit  of  love, 
of  thought,  of  race,  of  life,  and  has  a  burn- 
ing heart  to  pierce,"  I  said  in  heat. 

"  You  wish  it  were  flesh  and  blood. 
You  would  like  to  destroy  the  form,  devour 
it  from  your  sensual  desire,"  she  replied 
intensely. 

"  Even  the  Virgin,  as  painted  by  the  old 
masters,  is  but  a  beautiful  woman,"  I 
went  on.  "  The  artists  felt " 

"You  would  drag  down  religion,  too, 
and  debase  it  with  your  materialistic  views. 
Spare  me  !  "  she  said  icily,  and  for  a  mo- 
ment she  stood  imperiously  gazing  at  me. 
179 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

' '  That  is  worse  than  the  Turks, ' '  sne  ex- 
claimed,  and  left  the  room. 

"  Those  monstrous,  well-bred  men,  the 
Turks,"  I  called  out,  using  Mr.  Thack- 
eray's phrase  as  a  stone  to  hurl  after  her. 

The  heat  in  my  heart  blazed  like  the  coal 
fire  at  my  feet.  Her  repulse  of  my  love, 
for  the  expressions  and  ideas  we  had  used 
were  symbols  of  our  real  feeling,  made  me 
sad  and  sorry.  I  felt  more  deeply  that  my 
only  safety  lay  in  retreat. 

"Wine  was  born  of  the  same  heat  or 
force  as  that  coal  which  flames  in  its  freely 
consuming  passion.  The  coal  and  wine 
are  children  of  the  sun,"  I  thought.  "  And 
wine  for  its  joy  and  comfort,  its  hilarity 
and  sympathy  has  been  likened  to  love. 
But  the  coal  flame  seems  more  like  Eliza- 
beth's nature.  It  is  intoxication  for  me 
to  burn  to  a  cinder  in  her  fire." 


1 80 


VI.— THE    CLAY 


THE  antidote  of  any  in- 
toxication is  a  new  food  kept 
always  at  hand  and  ready 
when  the  outcry  begins.  To 
find  such  an  one  for  my  pas- 
sion was  now  my  aim. 

Speculation  in  money 
passed  through  my  mind 
in  its  search  for  relief,  for 
some  outlet  to  my  wounded 
pride.  "  Thorough  self-control  and  skepti- 
cism are  the  main  strength  at  the  Bourse," 
says  De  Goncourt,  defining  "  the  certain 
imperious  decision  characteristic  of  the 
man  who  makes  money."  Yet  I  felt  sure 
it  was  the  best  nerve  cure  in  the  round  of 
distraction.  But  the  cost  might  be  too 

great.      Elizabeth  once  said  of  me  with  a 
181 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

laugh,  "You  are  too  sanguine  to  be  a 
speculator.  You  believe  even  in  the  im- 
agination of  your  own  poetic  brain." 

Then  I  thought  of  my  art,  modelling  in 
clay,  which  would  engage  my  soul  and 
heart.  In  the  nobleness  of  form  for  which 
I  had  so  passionate  a  feeling,  the  sweetness 
of  line,  and  balance,  and  proportion,  I 
could  work  out  my  disappointment.  It 
would  fill  my  days  and  tire  me  to  sleep 
at  nights.  This  I  took  up. 

The  plastic  clay,  so  like  silk  to  the 
touch,  so  obedient,  so  willing  to  tell  a 
feeling,  or  imagination,  seemed  to  soothe 
the  pain  in  my  heart.  Hours  and  hours  I 
labored  to  reduce  into  expressive  form  the 
violent  emotion  within  me.  Yet  when  the 
bust  or  statue  or  hastily  designed  group,  or 
even  the  shape  of  a  vase,  grew  to  a  state  to 
stand  alone,  and  I  came  without  myself  to 

see  the  effect,  I  only  sighed. 

182 


DAWN 

For  always,  in  each  thing  I  made,  the 
beauty,  the  grace,  the  passion,  the  vitality  of 
Elizabeth  spoke.  Her  flavor  or  sentiment, 
like  a  sweet  perfume,  was  felt  by  the  senses 
in  every  angle  and  in  every  curve.  She 
had  become  part  of  my  soul  and  spirit,  and 
she  seemed  to  guide  my  fingers  in  all  I 
modelled.  The  tone  or  key  of  the  seimper- 
fect,  perishable,  ephemeral  songs  in  clay 
was  regret,  courage  at  death,  inconsolable 
sadness. 

Of  course,  thought  was  busy  when  I 
copied  the  model,  the  design  as  well  as 
the  motive  was  constantly  before  my 
mind's  eye.  The  hands  were  active  and 
my  frame  earnestly  moving.  Yet  while 
the  clay  was  shaped  and  the  artistic  qual- 
ity forced  into  the  piece,  my  other  mind 
and  my  heart  fought  as  if  in  a  struggle  for 
life. 

Below  my  active  perceptions  in  the  vast 
183 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

subconsciousness  of  the  under  brain,  emo- 
tions grappled  with  the  spirit  of  pride  or 
ideas  of  duty.  The  old  contest  of  soul 
and  senses  went  fiercely  on,  while  I  felt 
myself  a  mere  spectator  and  coolly  watched 
the  battle  vary,  as  it  did  day  after  day.  At 
the  start  of  the  fight  the  emotion  seemed 
to  get  the  better,  but,  later,  thought  gained 
until  it  conquered. 

The  victory  once  won  for  reserve,  for 
manhood,  and  pride,  and  for  her  peace,  I 
found  a  self-control  and  a  strength  to  seek 
diversion  in  other  things.  I  began  school- 
ing myself  by  going  over  step  by  step  the 
long  episode  and  noting  my  failures,  for 
they  were  mine  and  not  hers.  Whenever 
there  rose  into  view,  from  under  the  deep 
sea  of  being,  a  critical  thought  of  Eliza- 
beth's actions  or  feelings,  I  drove  it  down 
by  my  will-power.  In  that  strange  other 

part  of  the  brain,  where  all  that  we  see  or 
184 


DAWN 

know  seems  to  sink  and  then  come  forth 
anew  controlling  our  actions  and  desires 
as  if  by  fate,  it  seemed  her  character 
and  motives  were  clearly  measured.  In- 
deed, what  she  really  thought  and  felt, 
which  was  so  much  a  mystery  to  me,  some- 
thing below  in  my  brain  seemed  fully  to 
understand.  I  felt  if  I  did  but  listen  I 
could  hear  it  all.  But  I  would  not. 

The  truthfulness  of  her  nature  I  trusted  ; 
her  impulses  or  caprices  it  was  not  my 
right  to  question.  I  gave  her  the  freedom 
I  took  myself,  nor  would  I  plead  for  love. 
For  years  my  case  had  been  before  her  and 
had  been  put  in  eveiy  light.  I  had  no 
more  to  say.  She  must  judge,  must  de- 
cide of  her  own  free  will,  and  this  I  knew 
clearly  she  would  do,  unmoved  by  pity  or 
by  passion. 

I  saw  from  her  rallying  me  in  jest  that 
she  thought  my  sullen  storm  would  pass. 
185 


REGRET   OF  SPRING 

Then  she  fretted  somewhat.  She  became 
imperious  and  rather  resentful  for  a  time, 
and  finally  there  came  over  her  a  new 
manner — pleasant,  glassy,  without  sym- 
pathy. 

Urged  by  vanity  and  artistic  enthusiasm, 
I  brought  home  a  little  clay  figure  of  a 
woman.  In  it  I  had  tried  to  express  the 
madness  of  a  beautiful  creature  from  over- 
praise and  adoration  of  her  beauty — the 
wild  abandon  and  splendor  of  pride. 

She  flouted  it,  saying,  "  It  is  a  drunken 
Bacchante,  nothing  more." 

"  Yes,  drunken  with  the  glory  of  self." 

"  No,  with  wickedness.  Then  it  is  faulty 
in  drawing,  and  has  no  beauty  that  I  can 
feel.  It  displeases  me,  offends  my  taste." 

"You  see  only  what  is  in  yourself,"  I 
replied  scornfully.  For  her  words  were 
bitter  to  me,  and  she  knew  it.  I  was 

aware  that  she  had  but  little  expert  knowl- 
186 


DAWN 

edge,  and  that  she  spoke  rather  from  a  wish 
to  hurt  me. 

"  You  are  always  arrogant  in  art  mat- 
ters," she  said,  "as  if  there  was  no  appeal 
from  your  judgment.  You  talk  as  if  one 
should  know  and  feel  only  as  you  do,  with- 
out a  question  of  an  opposite  taste." 

"As  you  are  in  matters  of  love,"  I  re- 
plied, striking  down  the  clay  figure  into 
dirt.  Whereat  she  gasped,  and  stood  look- 
ing at  me  with  shut  lips,  in  reproach. 

With  a  forced  laugh  I  swept  up  the  bits 
of  half-dry  earth.  "  It  was  only  like  a 
sentiment  which  goes  with  the  wine."  She 
did  not  reply,  nor  did  she  notice  me  during 
that  evening. 

The  break  between  us  widened  until  all 
interested  talk  or  association  ceased.  We 
went  our  separate  ways.  How  it  was  with 
her,  I  do  not  know ;  with  me  there  was  a 

set  purpose  to  turn  my  back  and  await  the 

187 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

time  when  friendship  might  cover  the  grave 
of  love. 

In  one  of  her  more  outspeaking  moods 
Elizabeth  had  said:  "It  is  not  praise  I 
wish  but  sympathy,  or,  as  you  put  it,  appre- 
ciation. The  fact  is,  in  the  '  East '  they 
are  either  afraid  to  be  natural  or  they  are 
stupid,  and  so  say  nothing.  The  faintest 
praise  seems  to  them  to  be  sinful.  Do 
what  you  may,  whether  it  be  to  pray  well 
in  meeting  or  to  play  finely,  or  even  to  give 
yourself  in  charity,  no  one  says  a  word. 
Ah  !  one  dies  in  such  a  dry  atmosphere." 

It  had  been  my  wont  to  praise  her  when 
she  looked  well-dressed  or  made  a  bit  of 
tasteful  embroidery,  or  when  she  gave  a 
sound,  thoughtful  criticism  of  a  book.  The 
impulse  to  do  so  came  to  me  without 
thought  or  purpose.  Whatever  she  did  I 
liked. 

As   a  great    artist    once   said,  when   I 

188 


DAWN 

quietly  told  him  his  painting  seemed  ex- 
pressive and  true :  "  Oh,  give  it  to  me 
strong,  if  you  feel  that  way.  How  do  you 
expect  an  artist  to  breathe  without  the  air 
of  praise.  It  is  all  he  works  for  or  ex- 
pects from  the  public." 

So  I  think  Elizabeth  missed  this  sym- 
pathy, and  the  intelligent,  quick  apprecia- 
tion of  her  thoughts  and  taste.  Several 
times,  when  the  dulness  between  us  grew  too 
heavy  to  bear,  she  began  to  say  something, 
but  I  merely  answered  "yes"  or  "no," 
and  she  would  become  silent  immediately. 

With  me,  it  was  not  a  sullen  temper 
which  bridled  my  tongue.  If  I  was  to  be 
without  constant  misery  I  felt  I  dare  not 
be  drawn  into  the  old  footing  of  intimacy. 
I  had  tried  her  way  into  a  cut  de  sac,  and 
must  turn  back.  Possibly,  too,  there  was  a 
struggle  of  will  as  to  who  should  master. 

Whatever  she  missed,  or  thought,  or  felt, 
189 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

I  do  not  know.  I  could  not  spy  on  her 
moods  or  actions,  nor  watch  her  ways,  nor 
could  I  any  longer  listen  to  the  intuitive 
voice  of  instinct.  My  impressions  of 
her  now  were  only  general  and  indistinct. 
At  last  her  manner  lost  its  affectation, 
and  became  frank  and  honest,  though  re- 
served, like  her  true  and  noble  self. 

"Yes.     She  adores  me — but   she   does 
not  love  me." 


190 


VII.— LIFE 


WET  snow  had  fall- 
en and  clung  to  the 
branches  of  the  old 
pear  trees.  The  cold 
seemed  greater  within 

me  than  without.  A  dim  moonlight  shone 
on  the  white  tufts  and  patches  which  hung 
to  the  dead  leaves,  giving  a  faint  effect  of 
blossoms  and  awakening  in  me  a  memory 
of  the  spring,  yet  without  its  beauty  or 
tenderness. 

I  was  alone.  Elizabeth  had  not  come 
down,  nor  had  I  seen  her  for  two  days.  I 
had  fitted  my  mind  to  the  old  pursuits  and 
long-forgotten  aids  to  life,  though  my  heart 
did  not  cease  to  ache  nor  my  pride  to 

rebel.     Still  there  was  no  poignant  regret, 
191 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

no  breathless,  sleep-killing  pain,  which  I 
felt  so  acutely  at  first. 

The  fire  was  cheerful  and  the  lamp 
bright,  though  the  hopeless  state  of  my 
feelings  and  the  mournful  sense  of  the 
snow  gave  the  tone  to  the  room. 

I  was  sitting  alone,  reading.  I  heard  a 
step  behind  me  and  knew  it  was  she,  as  I 
knew  every  motion  of  her  eyelid,  whether 
it  might  express  joy,  love,  or  pain.  She 
stood  for  a  time,  but  I  said  nothing,  nor  did 
I  turn.  Even  when  I  felt  her  breath  on  my 
ear,  I  did  not  move.  She  said  steadily,  as 
if  she  had  often  repeated  the  sentence,  she 
whispered  :  "  If  I  only  knew  he  was  dead." 

I  held  up  my  hand  above  my  head,  which 
she  clasped  tightly.  I  closely  held  hers^ 
a  pledge,  a  vow  of  devotion  and  love.  I 
drew  down  her  hand  and  kissed  it  again 
and  again.  She  left  the  room  as  she  had 

come.     I  did  not  see  her. 
192 


DAWN 

After  she  had  gone  I  did  not  move,  but 
sat  as  quiet  in  my  feelings  as  often  comes 
when  death  strikes,  unable,  not  caring  to 
realize  what  had  taken  place.  I  seemed, 
in  a  while,  to  hear  a  voice  saying,  "  She  is 
mine — her  heart  is  mine."  Then  an  out- 
burst of  feeling  welled  up  in  my  heart; 
the  sense  I  felt  was  like  that  of  a  cool 
storm  after  a  long  hot  spell,  when  man  and 
nature  drop  in  a  bodily  ecstasy,  a  wild 
wind,  freedom  after  long  imprisonment. 
Laughter  and  tears  and  joy  seemed  to  riot 
in  me. 

.My  hair,  gray  and  black,  like  the  ashes 
and  coal  before  me,  meant  years  of  living ; 
the  furrows  on  my  face  were  the  marks  of 
discipline  and  many  struggles;  not  that 
the  fire  in  me  had  gone  out.  I  smiled  at 
the  feeling  in  my  heart,  the  vital  throb  of 
my  pulse,  even  the  blush  on  my  cheeks. 
Though  the  delight  and  freshness  in  me 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

was  like  that  of  a  child,  there  was  no  sense 
of  shame  or  fear  or  wrong,  no  need  of 
tolerance  for  my  age.  I  was  saner  far 
than  those  who  might  jeer  and  scoff  from 
their  ignorance  or  false  ideas  of  love. 

The  secret  of  keeping  young — if  not 
wholly  so  in  the  body  or  the  face,  still  in 
the  source  or  spring  of  life — was  mine. 
If  the  heart  and  the  soul  be  filled,  gush- 
ing with  the  one  prime  reason  for  existence 
—  with  love,  then  time  counts  little  and 
you  will  live  long  beyond  the  allotted 
span.  This  mystery,  this  talisman,  which 
the  world  seeks  and  has  always  sought,  lies 
open  and  revealed  in  all  nature ;  to  love  is 
to  live,  to  cease  to  love  is  to  die. 

I  felt  as  I  imagined  Pope  Julius  must 
have  done  after  his  election  to  the  Ponti- 
ficate, when  he  threw  aside  his  crutches 
and  spat  to  the  ceiling.  I  leaped  to  my 
feet  strong,  vigorous,  healthful,  ready 
194 


DAWN 

and  able  to  meet  any  fatigue  or  hardship 
to  serve  the  woman  who  had  for  me  this 
fountain  of  life,  this  power  of  renewal, 
this  new  birth. 

Age,  too,  may  at  times  have  its  passion 
of  love,  but  it  is  not  the  cruel,  fleeting  love- 
passion  of  youth,  than  which  there  is  noth- 
ing on  earth  so  full  of  tears.  The  social 
laws  of  love,  monkish-born,  which  domi- 
nate our  life  are  the  cause  of  the  death-grip 
in  our  hearts,  the  pessimism  we  feel.  They 
are  not  Christian  nor  pagan,  but  devilish. 

How  owlish  the  laughs  and  jeers  at  a 
love  of  older  people  sounded  in  my  ears. 
How  untrue  and  destroying  in  my  sight  to 
one  of  the  sweetest  things  in  life,  the  love 
of  experience.  It  does  exist,  but  hides  its 
head  and  covers  its  face  from  the  boorish, 
ignorant  pointing  of  fingers.  It  is  far 
deeper,  truer,  more  unselfish,  finer  than  the 
passion  of  youth. 

195 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

The  orbit  in  which  Elizabeth  and  I  cir- 
cled would,  I  knew,  be  lined  with  such 
jesting  ironical  smiles,  smiles  which  would 
make  me  hate  the  base  minds  that  prompted 
them.  Yet  I  was  proud  and  rejoiced  in 
my  pride,  not  at  a  Sabine  capture  of  a 
woman,  not  at  the  winning  of  an  Aspasia, 
as  a  young  man  might,  but  at  the  self-sur- 
render for  eterni  ty  of  a  noble  soul  and  all  its 
habitation  to  a  higher  capacity  and  power. 

I  sat  for  hours  and  thought  out  my 
course.  Without  further  word  with  her  I 
would  seek  George  or  proofs  of  his  death. 
"  If  I  find  him — if  then  she  wishes  him,  my 
love  will  do  all  to  make  her  happy.  But 
if " 


196 


DAYLIGHT 

I.— THE    BUCKET   SHOP 

THE  flames  of  the  coal  no  longer  passion- 
ately danced  and  flared  :  even  the  embers 
of  fire  were  dead.  The  gray  ashes  at  the 

ends  of  black  lumps  in  the  grate  a  few 
197 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

hours  ago  would  have  been  full  of  grief  to 
me,  symbols  of  a  dead  love.  My  body 
was  not  cold;  I  did  not  shiver  in  loneli- 
ness and  feel  as  if  the  grave  was  but  a  few 
steps  beyond. 

I  sat  warmed  by  hope  and  joy,  think- 
ing of  the  future.  The  past  seemed  to 
have  flown  like  a  summer  storm,  and 
everything  glistened  and  shone  as  if  loaded 
with  jewels.  Self-esteem,  pride,  appreci- 
ation, love,  swelled  in  my  heart  and  made 
my  inner  vision  clear.  I  knew  Elizabeth's 
heart  and  mind  once  more  as  if  her  wishes 
were  written  on  a  scroll.  My  only  desire 
was  to  step  with  tact  and  decision  as  she 
guided. 

That  very  night  I  made  ready  to  leave 
early  in  the  morning  to  seek  George.  I 
did  not  change  my  outward  manner,  or 
give  my  sister  a  hint  of  why  I  went.  I 

was  as  discreet  as  Elizabeth  would  have 
198 


DAr 'LIGHT 

been  herself.  She  did  not  come  down, 
although  the  news  of  my  going  had  no 
doubt  been  told  her,  nor  did  I  see  or  hear 
from  her. 

The  search  was  long,  hard,  and  almost 
hopeless.  I  began  where  Elizabeth  had 
said  he  had  entered  active  life  in  law, 
though  not  at  the  top,  but  among  "  shy- 
sters. ' '  George  could  never  have  had  any 
good  repute  and  not  have  flaunted  it  before 
his  old  friends.  He  must  have  sunk  in  the 
depths,  to  the  dregs  of  beggars,  or  perhaps 
thieves.  But  there  was  no  trace  of  him  to 
be  found. 

If  she  had  known  how  I  held  him,  or  what 
hate  for  him  there  was  in  my  heart,  lead- 
ing me  to  class  him  with  the  lowest  of 
men,  living  with  the  worst  of  women,  her 
esteem  for  me  would  have  fallen.  I  felt 
how  she  waited  now  without  a  sign  to  any 

one  of  her  interest  in  my  search,  trusting 
199 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

me,  though  she  must  have  had,  must  still 
have,  a  tempest  in  her  soul. 

Love  is  an  arrogant  master  and  will  have 
no  subterfuges.  There  is  no  love  without 
the  body  as  well  as  the  soul.  Theorize 
and  talk  as  we  may,  when  affection  or  de- 
votion becomes  love,  then  passion,  the 
controller,  must  sway  us  all.  Here  was  I 
hunting  in  the  slums  of  a  city,  offended  by 
foulness,  made  hard  and  stern  by  crime  at 
every  step,  for  the  sake  and  by  the  force  of 
the  new  life  of  love  within  me.  And  there 
was  she  at  home,  ready  to  lay  down  her 
morals  of  a  lifetime,  the  discipline  and 
loyalty  of  years,  for  a  love  surging  through 
her  veins.  That  was  the  truth,  and  that  is 
the  inevitable. 

"  Ah,  no  ;  it  is  false,"  my  soul  cries  in  re- 
bellion ;  "that  is  not  even  a  half-truth.  The 
fire  may  have  been  lighted  by  the  motive 
of  the  body,  but  it  burns  with  the  flame  of 


DAT  LIGHT 

a  higher  part.  An  impulse  of  desire  urged 
me,  forced  me,  yet  it  is  the  deepest  unsel- 
fishness, the  truest  devotion  of  the  heart 
which  leads  me  on.  The  craving  of  the 
body  alone  could  never  have  borne  me 
through  the  weariness  and  disgust  of  such 
a  search.  It  would  rather  have  called  me 
back,  telling  me  of  far  easier  ways." 

The  rosy  clouds  of  the  imagination  and 
of  hope  blinded  me.  It  was  that  which 
shrouded  my  mind  to  all  this  change  and 
this  new  impulse.  I  worked  to  prove  the 
death  of  this  man  or  to  make  a  failure  of 
finding  any  trace  of  him,  sure  of  my  re- 
ward. The  proof  I  felt  I  had  in  my  hands. 
I,  half-hearted  now,  only  wandered  about 
to  satisfy  my  conscience. 

At  last  I  strayed  into  a  modern  betting 
place,  called  a  "bucket  shop."  To  say  I 
strayed  into  such  a  place  is  to  use  a  cloak 
of  hypocrisy.  I  went  in  to  see  the  "fig- 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

ures  "  and  learn  how  the  market  was  going, 
and  not  to  seek  George.  This  kind  of  an 
office,  or  place  for  pseudo-speculation,  was 
familiar  to  me,  who  had  often  taken  a 
"  flyer  "  to  my  sorrow  and  loss. 

The  art  of  money-making  is  not  to  be 
learned  or  acquired,  it  is  only  born  in  a 
man,  as  I  had  found  out  by  bitter  experi- 
ence— a  truth  few  understand.  The  game 
of  love,  the  mere  appetite — the  outcry  of 
the  unborn — a  primary  instinct  in  us  all 
varies  in  its  fortune  as  the  game  of 
money  which  all  pursue.  Success  is  the 
end  of  money-getting  like  that  of  true 
love,  only  the  test  of  long  trial  can  prove 
the  capacity.  Some  are  loved,  and  some 
have  the  power  to  love  and  the  many  are 
poor,  except  in  self-confidence. 

"  In  the  pursuit  of  love  am  I  as  impotent 
as  this  eager,  anxious,  jostling,  loudly-talk- 
ing crowd  I  see  before  me  ? 


DAYLIGHT 

"  If  I  cannot  inspire  love,  at  least  my 
heart  is  deep  and  loyal.  My  part  is  the 
truer,  the  higher,  the  sweeter.  I  love  her 
even  though  she  fail  to  love  me.  Eliza- 
beth will  never  grow  mad  or  unfaithful 
from  any  impulse.  Her  heart  is  bound  to 
me  with  bonds  stronger  than  steel,  which 
no  insanity  can  break." 

A  "bucket  shop"  is  the  easiest,  most 
tempting,  falsest  road  in  which  to  try  your 
fortune.  The  facility  it  gives  unduly  to 
speculate  on  a  basis  or  margin  "  from  $10 
up"  is  ample.  No  securities  "pass,"  no 
actual  trade  is  made.  They  settle  "dif- 
ferences "  on  the  prices  made  at  the  New 
York  Stock  Exchange,  which  are  reported 
by  a  "  ticker  "—on  the  "  tape." 

I  watched  for  a  time  the  stream  of  life 
which  pours  into  a  "  bucket  shop,"  always 
the  same  in  its  blind  enthusiasm  and  pur- 
suit of  an  ideal.  "  The  gambler,"  I  felt, 
203 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

"  resembles  the  ascetic  in  his  devoutness 
and  narrowness." 

Polished  oaken  screens,  frescoed  walls, 
brass  grills,  gave  this  large  room  a  glitter 
of  false  festivity  akin  to  a"  bar"  ;  the  cries 
of  the  "  Caller  "  reminded  one  of  an  auc- 
tion, and  the  rows  of  chairs  before  this 
Shrine  of  Baal  had  the  sense  of  a  lecture- 
room.  A  motley  mass  of  eager  or  in- 
different and  lazy  men  were  seated  in  this 
nervous  eddy  of  life. 

They  stood  in  groups,  or  streamed  to  the 
cashier's  window,  like  bees  to  and  from 
the  hive.  There  were  young  men  full  of 
the  confidence  of  youth,  broken  merchants 
buoyed  alone  by  hope,  failed  brokers, 
countrymen,  and  stock  gamblers — a  dis- 
tinct type;  swell,  seedy,  and  battered  old 
men.  Gay  and  sad;  all  were  silent,  self- 
absorbed,  watching  the  prayer-wheel  turn, 

or  loud  and  boisterous  when  the  market 
204 


DAYLIGHT 

was  active ;  or,  when  they  had  no  "  deal  " 
on  hand,  and  the  market  dull,  were  chatty 
and  full  of  gossip — worshippers  of  the  fickle 
goddess  of  fortune. 

"  Commodore,  your  point  on  '  Sugar  '  is 
a  fake  !  "  sung  out  a  scoffer  from  the  rim 
of  a  wheel  of  men  which  circled  about  a 
hub  near  where  I  sat. 

I  turned  my  ear  to  the  monotonous  voice 
of  the  "Caller"  to  catch  the  price  of 
"  Sugar,"  from  among  the  procession  of 
stock  figures  which  endlessly  rolled  from 
the  mouth  of  the  ticker.  The  young  man 
insistently,  with  triumph  in  his  tones, 
shouted  these  figures,  and  another  chalked 
them  down  on  a  huge  blackboard  where 
all  could  see. 

"  Sugar,  54^—53  N.  B."  the  "  Caller  " 
yelled.  It  came  like  a  signal  gun.  That 
was  evidently  a  sudden  fall  in  the  price 

and  indicated  a  further  decline.     Many  of 
205 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

the  dealers  lost  their  "margins"  by  the 
fall. 

The  crowd  fled  apart  like  a  flock  of 
frightened  crows;  hurrying  of  feet  and  a 
loud  murmur  passed  through  the  room 
from  this  crisis  or  change  in  the  market. 
It  was  clear  they  had  been  expecting  a  rise 
in  "Sugar"  and  other  stocks,  and  the 
market  had  turned  downwards.  Sympathy 
with  this  excitement  and  tremor  of  feeling 
was  irresistible.  I  seemed  to  quiver  and 
was  drawn  into  it  by  invisible  hands. 
The  cries  of  the  "  Caller"  were  like  the 
howls  of  a  mob  leader  urging  us  on. 

A  tall,  large-framed,  hatless  old  man, 
who  had  been  the  centre  of  their  chaff,  was 
disclosed  as  the  screen  of  their  bodies  was 
taken  away.  With  an  oath  he  tore  into 
bits  a  "  ticket  "  which  he  held  in  his  hand. 
"  Just  my  luck,"  he  muttered. 

Catching  my  look  of  wonder,  he  came 
206 


DAYLIGHT 

to  a  seat  beside  me,  and  asked  in  an  ex- 
cited manner,  "  What  do  you  think  of  this 
market  ? ' ' 

He  had  the  appearance  of  an  animal 
that  scents  its  prey — a  "  capper"  when  he 
sights  a  victim.  This  course  and  his  sud- 
den address  were  not  unusual  or  peculiar 
to  him.  "  Markets  "  are  so  much  a  matter 
of  sentiment  and  impression  that  any  one's 
feeling  is  of  weight,  and  everybody  asks 
and  is  ready  to  give  an  opinion.  Specula- 
tors generally  move  like  a  flock  of  sheep; 
they  convince  each  other  by  sympathy  and 
action  and  little  by  thought  or  reason. 
They  are  a  "  crowd  "  where  one  has  no  in- 
dividuality, only  sentiment. 

I  moved  uneasily,  but  answered  indiffer- 
ently, "I?  Oh,  I  think  nothing — it's  all 
Greek  to  me." 

"  I  know  it  like  a  book,  sir,"  he  eagerly 

replied.     "  My  life  has  been  spent   over 
207 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

its  vagaries,  which  no  philosophy  can 
fathom.  Luck  has  fought  against  me ; 
yet  the  market  is  still  as  attractive  and  in- 
teresting as  a  capricious  woman." 

He  was  a  striking,  distinguished-look- 
ing man,  although  a  wreck  from  dissipa- 
tion— a  high  liver.  A  profuse  head  of 
hair  waved  behind  his  ears  to  the  nape  of 
his  neck — white  and  painted  with  streaks 
of  yellow,  beautiful  in  its  tint  and  fineness 
as  a  bit  of  faded  mummy  cloth.  There 
was  not  an  atom  of  black  or  dark  tone  in 
his  blond  blood,  to  make  his  hair  gray,  or 
to  give  him  grit  in  the  fight  of  life. 

He  spoke  in  the  confident,  enthusiastic, 
self-centred  way  of  one  who,  first  deceiv- 
ing himself,  ruins  those  who  come  within 
his  influence.  "  Let  me  buy  some  '  Sugar ' 
on  joint  account?  Confidentially,  I  have 
a  point  direct  from  a  clerk  of  the  Sugar 

King.     'It's  going  to  par.''      While   he 
208 


DAYLIGHT 

talked,  the.  market  rattled  on.  "Sugar 
50^2,"  yelled  the  satellite,  as  if  in  derision. 

Scarcely  knowing  what  I  did — fascinated 
by  some  peculiar  charm  in  this  man,  and 
an  instinct  that  it  was  he  whom  I  sought — 
I  handed  him  $50.  "  Go  buy  fifty  shares 
of  'Sugar.'  It  is  now  50.  Perhaps  your 
luck  will  turn." 

With  the  avidity  of  a  gambler,  he 
grabbed  the  money  in  his  nervous  fingers, 
and  hurried  to  the  "  Desk,"  dragging  his 
right  leg,  partly  paralyzed,  although  he 
carried  himself  like  a  gentleman ;  his  leo- 
nine head  towering  above  the  crowd  as  he 
forced  his  way  through  it.  He  returned 
almost  immediately.  I  saw  that  he  had 
been  a  magnificent  man  ;  was  yet  superb 
even  in  his  ruin,  like  the  bastion  of  a  de- 
cayed castle. 

The  confident  smile  on  his  face  and  his 

satisfied    manner    evidently  impressed  his 
209 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

horde  of  followers.  The  armies  of  small 
speculators  always  have  a  general,  even 
under  officers, whose  views  and  "deals ' '  they 
"  bank  on."  It  is  their  fallacy  that  there 
is  some  inside  royal  road  to  winning  which 
is  known  to  a  few.  He  evidently  was  one 
of  these  generals,  and  one  for  whom  they 
had  affection  as  well  as  trust,  although  he 
stood  above  them  and  seemed  to  be  their 
despot. 

Scarcely  had  he  come  back  to  me  when 
they  began  to  gather  about  him  and  to 
endeavor  to  get  his  ear. 

"Say!  what's  your  point?  Is  Sugar  a 
sale?  What  did  you  do?"  they  asked  in 
low  voices,  as  if  wealth  could  only  be 
gained  in  the  dark. 

He  was  nice  in  his  manner  to  each  of 
them  and  whispered  some  advice  that  all 
hurried  to  act  upon.  Their  expressions 
were  kindly  as  they  nodded  to  him  in 


DAYLIGHT 

thanks.  They  seemed  to  admire  and  to 
be  devoted  to  him. 

Clearly,  he  was  an  idealist  whom  defeat 
did  not  dishearten.  I  heard  him  say  to 
one  of  the  enquirers,  "  There  is  no  past  in 
speculation.  It's  all  future.  He  who  looks 
back  is  left.  Buy  it,  man,  I  tell  you!" 
He  turned  to  me,  holding  out  his  hand  in 
an  enthusiastic  way. 

"  If  we  are  to  do  business  together  we 
may  as  well  make  ourselves  known."  I 
handed  him  my  card.  He  read  the  name, 
and  replied  carelessly,  "Ah!  Yes.  And 
I  am  George  Cargen." 

"  You  George  Cargen!"  I  said,  ner- 
vously agitated.  "Are  you  from  Rock- 
field?  "  I  had  learned  that  was  the  name 
of  the  man  I  sought. 

This  was  he  whom  Elizabeth  loved. 
Here  was  the  relic  of  her  idol,  her  Lohen- 
grin. His  eyes  were  dim  and  shifty,  face 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

deeply  carved  with  the  lines  of  passion, 
complexion  red  and  rough ;  yet  the  ves- 
tiges of  a  grand  physique  were  there,  and 
the  handsome,  royal  appearance,  that  in  his 
youth  must  have  inspired  the  love  of  any 
woman,  was  still  suggested. 

I  saw  he  was  fluttered,  as  if  struck  by 
my  words.  "  Have  a  cigar,"  I  said. 

"  I  never  smoke,  and  seldom  drink  dur- 
ing business  hours.  These  petty  vices  are 
a  man's  bane.  If  he  must  exceed  the 
bounds  of  strict  puritanism,  why " 

"  Is  this  your  regular  business,  dealing 
in  a  'bucket  shop'?"  I  sharply  inter- 
rupted. He  did  not  seem  conscious  of  my 
close  scrutiny,  but  answered  my  question 
candidly  enough. 

"  I  am  a  broker  in  the  stocks  of  wiped- 
out  mines  and  railways.  I  buy  these 
worthless  certificates,  sold  by  executors  of 
estates,  for  a  song,  and  trade  them  for  cash. ' ' 


DAT  LIGHT 

"  What  value  have  they  above  mere 
paper?"  I  asked  quizzically. 

"To  be  frank,"  he  said,  throwing  back 
his  head  and  shaking  his  mane,  "men 
who  expect  to  fail  buy  them  and  put  them 
into  their  account  as  assets,  and  for  which 
they  pretend  they  have  paid  high  prices, 
taking  out  the  money  in  their  place. 
Oh  ! ' '  seeing  my  look  of  amazement, 
"I've  no  moral  responsibility  in  the 
transaction.  My  skirts  are  clear.  I 
merely  sell  them." 

"Wall  Street"  is  one  of  the  many 
Bourses,  the  modern  battle-fields  of  the 
world,  where,  like  knights,  men  seek 
fame,  power,  and  wealth.  The  purse  to- 
day is  as  necessary  as  was  the  sword  in 
olden  times,  and  nowhere  can  nerve, 
brains,  honor  so  rapidly  gain  supremacy. 
But,  like  all  fields  of  war,  its  fringe  is 

ragged  and  base,  stained  by  cowards  and 
213 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

hawks,  who  prey  while  the  eagles  fight. 
And  what  this  man  did  was  the  lowest  prac- 
tice of  a  "  vulture." 

There  was  excitement  and  roar  of  loud 
talking  through  the  room.  The  market 
was  raging  and  men  raged  with  it. 

I  did  not  heed  though  I  heard  the  voice 
of  the  "  Caller,"  which  struck  me  as  of  one 
beating  on  a  gong.  The  large  man  talk- 
ing to  me  heard  and  judged,  although  his 
mind  was  in  a  new  stress.  Others  were 
busy  buying  or  selling,  not  of  each  other, 
but  of  the  ministering  priest — cashier — at 
the  "  window."  The  sympathetic  current, 
whichever  way  it  flowed,  Cargen,  no  doubt, 
felt  while  he  talked,  though  I  did  not. 
Experts  hearing  the  noise  from  any  Ex- 
change, merely  the  sound,  can  tell  whether 
it  is  a  bull  or  bear  market,  and  a  dealer 
seems  to  have  instincts  to  catch  the  drift. 

"Sugar, 50^4  —  i, ooo at  51,"  sounded  the 
214 


DAT  LIGHT 

dolorous  note  of  the  chorister  of  these  new 
rites,  held  in  the  purlieus  of  a  true  temple. 

The  stock  was  on  the  "rally"  and  the 
rapid  change  of  price  caused  great  activity 
in  the  dealings.  The  rise  had  doubled  the 
deposit  of  those  who  had  bought  and 
cleaned  out  those  who  had  sold. 

Cargen,  who  was  "  long  "  and  had  made 
$50  on  the  money  I  had  given  him,  left 
me  abruptly  for  the  "window."  He  ex- 
claimed on  his  return,  "  I've  closed  our 
deal  and  bought  a  hundred  shares.  We've 
struck  it  rich.  Look  at  the  board — 
Sugar,  52.  See  her  sail!  It  was  a  scoop." 
When  he  realized  the  profit  he  had  made, 
he  bought  twice  as  much  as  before  with  the 
prospect  of  doubling  the  profit — "  he  built 
a  pyramid." 

Though  talking  with  me  or  listening  to 
others,  he  heard  the  "call"  and  acted, 

neither  current  checking  the  other.     On 
215 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

every  rise  of  a  point  he  hurried  to  the 
"  window  "  to  make  his  "  deal  "  and  back 
to  me,  never  losing  the  thread  of  either 
course  of  thought. 

Many  of  the  men  rushed  to  him  for  ad- 
vice, like  aids  to  a  general  in  a  battle. 
"Is  she  top?  Is  she  going  higher?" 
The  stock  was  advancing  rapidly.  His 
reply  was  a  confident  wave  of  the  hand  and 
a  laugh  of  congratulation  at  his  success  in 
"  steering  the  boys."  Vanity  over  his  "  I 
told  you  so  ' '  seemed  of  more  value  than 
the  money  he  was  winning. 

And  this  was  the  stormy  sea  on  which 
this  old  hulk — mind  and  body — was  trying 
to  keep  afloat.  Like  a  pirate,  he  had  no 
port  in  view,  no  refuge,  no  aim,  nothing 
but  what  he  could  seize. 

How  he  could  talk  to  me  as  he  did  and 
yet  show  no  special  sign  of  interest  or  ex- 
citement from  his  extraordinary  gain  was  a 
216 


DAT  LIGHT 

mystery  to  me.  I  did  not  care  for  the 
rise  in  the  stock  or  my  share  in  the  pro- 
fits; something  far  more  vital  was  in  my 
heart.  The  "image,"  the  "idol,"  had 
become  a  reality,  and  the  meaning  of  it, 
what  the  result  would  be,  shook  my  nerves 
with  thrills  of  pain.  George  was  not  dead. 

My  heart  was  seized  by  a  spasm.  I 
seemed  to  hear  a  voice  of  foreboding : 
"  Who  knows  the  vagaries  of  the  body? 
Who  shall  tell  why  or  with  whom  he  must 
mate?  Will  the  rage  of  her  youth,  her 
memory  take  her  from  my  arms?  He  has 
the  gift  of  bodily  fascination,  though  all 
else  is  wanting." 

My  soul  replied  with  indignation: 
"  What  is  this  passion  you  fear?  It  is 
born  by  a  look  and  dies  in  a  day.  At  the 
sight  of  this  man  in  his  degradation  of 
mind  and  body,  she  will  instantly  turn  and 

abhor  him.     She  divinely  loves  you." 
217 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

When  he  had  become  quiet  again,  and 
the  stock  halting  in  its  great  rise,  I  asked : 
"  How  is  it  that  a  man  of  your  fine  appear- 
ance and  strong  mind,  a  man  of  culture 
and  attainments,  should  have  reached  these 
sands  and  dregs  of  life?  " 

He  absorbed  the  flattery  with  the  appe- 
tite of  an  aged  belle.  Tossing  himself 
backward^  and  forwards,  laughing  softly, 
his  hands  clasped  behind  his  head,  he 
answered  :  "  You  fail,  my  dear  sir,  to  see 
the  aim  and  gist  of  life,  to  get  at  its  thrill 
and  joy.  With  me  it  is  the  old  story  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra — the  first  act  in  the 
drama  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  You  seem 
to  prefer  the  part  of  the  swineherd  and 
the  husks.  Why,  man  alive  !  the  written 
ideals  are  all  wrong;  Antony's  farewell 
a  mawkish  tribute  to  modern  sentiment. 
Every  man,  from  Cassar  to  his  historian, 

now  and  then,  wonders  at  and  envies  what 
218 


DAYLIGHT 

you  ignore.  Truth  is  crushed  under  the 
heel  of  woman.  When  I  graduated  at 
Yale,  I  thought  women  were  angels.  I 
found  them  in  many  cases  stern  mentors. 
Down  here  the  veil  fell.  What  could  a 
handsome  fellow  do  but  yield  to  their 
wiles  ?  "  And  he  laughed  aloud  after  this 
mannish  speech;  then  he  grew  somewhat 
pale  and  put  his  hand  on  his  heart,  as  if  it 
pained  him. 

These  were  a  braggart's  words,  or  a  screen 
or  barrier  of  defence  which  he  threw  up 
against  my  attack. 

"  Perhaps  this  '  trading,'  as  you  call  it," 
I  replied,  with  a  strong  force  of  disapproval 
of  his  sentiment  and  expression,  "  is  also 
a  necessary  evil,  and  its  existence  bene- 
ficial to  our  wives  and  daughters.  Men 
must  gratify  their  desires,  or  'worse  trouble' 
will  follow.  The  argument  of  looters  and 

robbers." 

219 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

"The  outcry  of  plain  men  and  women, 
of  the  disappointed  and  rejected,"  he  said, 
in  jerks,  unable  at  the  moment  to  talk. 

Behind  the  glad  tone  of  success  on  a  bull 
market,  beneath  the  expressionless  voice 
of  the  "Caller,"  and  under  the  scraping 
of  hurrying,  anxious  feet,  the  sharp,  in- 
stantaneous, sticky,  metallic  click  of  the 
"  ticker  "  struck  off  its  unchangeable,  fate- 
ful decrees,  the  pulse  of  the  financial  world. 
It  was  a  dragon  without  conscience  or  re- 
sponsibility or  sympathy,  before  whose 
every  mood  and  word,  no  matter  how 
deadly,  all  bowed,  as  before  a  god. 

"Sugar,  54^2,"  shouted  the  mouthpiece 
of  the  demon. 

"We  are  near  $1,000  to  the  good," 
George  said  brightly,  stimulated  to  recov- 
ery from  his  indisposition.  "  I  congratu- 
late you." 

"  Take  it  quick  !     If  the  stock  declines 


DAYLIGHT 

one  point,  it  will  all  be  lost,"  I  hastily, 
excitedly  cried,  carried  away  by  the  success 
of  his  "plunging." 

"  Nonsense.  My  head  was  level.  I 
felt  it  in  my  bones.  It  is  on  the  boom. 
We  will  have  ten  thousand  dollars  soon." 

A  fine-looking  though  haggard  old  man, 
with  heavy  gray  beard,  grabbed  his  arm  and 
turned  him  away  from  me. 

"  Cargen,"  he  asked  in  a  most  pleading 
voice,  "  protect  my  deal  or  lend  me  $50. 
For  God's  sake  !  " 

George,  at  once,  felt  in  his  coat  pockets, 
then  in  his  trousers  among  his  keys,  as  if 
sure  of  finding  the  money  somewhere.  "  I 
have  nothing  about  me,"  he  replied;  then, 
to  me,  "He  has  a  family,  we  must  help 
him.  Let  me  have  $50  until  our  deal  is 
closed;  "  which  I  did.  This  carelessness 
or  lack  of  thought  was  simply  the  nature 
of  the  man,  and  not,  as  I  doubted  then,  that 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

of  a  schemer.  It  was  but  a  sudden  glimpse 
of  the  sad  side  of  ruin  of  which  the  old 
man  was  a  victim. 

"There  is  a  good  rule  in  life,"  George 
said  to  me,  returning  to  our  talk;  "take 
your  gains  and  losses  with  equanimity,  and 
with  grace  if  you  can.  From  the  earliest 
start  in  life,  blows  have  been  showered 
upon  me  until  I  am  callous  :  women,  for- 
tune, fame,  every  path  has  ended  in  a  pit- 
fall, but  I  never  gave  way.  At  last  I  see 
success. ' ' 

"  That  was  not  the  fault  of  your  early 
training  at  Rockfield,  George  Cargen,"  I 
said  indignantly.  "You  sneer  at  women. 
You  have  reason  to  applaud  the  devotion 
of  at  least  one  woman." 

"Who  be  you?"  he  asked  with  anger, 
catching  his  breath,  and  seizing  my  arm. 

"No  one  you  know — I  am  Elizabeth's 
friend,  and  will  not  have  her  slandered." 


II.— HER   CREED 


AN  intense  spasm  of 
memory  stung  him,  for 
he  stood  and  tried 
vainly  to  keep  his  gaze 
on  me.  He  pushed 
back  the  hair  from  his 
forehead  with  both 
hands,  again  and 
again,  as  if  the  blood  filled  his  brain  to 
repletion.  Then  he  hurriedly  drew  me  to 
a  sofa  at  the  rear  of  the  room. 

"  Do  you  know  her?  "  he  asked.  "  Do 
you  know  the  cast-iron  fetters  of  life 
she  would  have  bound  about  me  ?  "  He 
had  grown  old,  gray,  colorless,  a  wreck  of 
a  man;  yet  majestic  still  as  some  sea- 
scarred  veteran,  some  unhelmeted  Norse- 
223 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

man  who  had  followed  his  fate  through 
years  of  love  and  war.  "  Her  ill-luck  has 
pursued  me  all  my  days,"  he  half  groaned. 

"  I  was  a  fine,  stalwart  man,  but  she  has 
hung  like  a  stone  about  my  neck.  It  was 
all  her  fault.  I  loved  her;  I  was  her  slave. 
She  was  not  fit  for  either  a  wife  or  a  mis- 
tress." 

"  By  God,  man  !  she  was  above  mating 
with  such  as  you,  and  is  above  all  your 
base  thoughts  of  her." 

"  She  should  have  been  a  nurse  or  a  nun. 
She  may  be  either,  for  aught  I  care.  Her 
morals,  I  have  no  doubt,  are  spotless,  and 
I  would  not  hint  anything  against  her 
character.  But  she  was  too  much  of  a 
prude  for  me." 

He  talked  in  the  manner  of  his  class,  and 
I  would  not  take  further  offence  at  his  sug- 
gestions. My  feeling  was  that  I  must  for 

her  sake  see  this  matter  through  to  the  end 
224 


DAY 'LIGHT 

and  appear  in  it  as  little  as  possible. 
"  Elizabeth  has  the  New  England  idea  of 
virtue  and  conduct  of  life.  It  does  not 
become  us  men  to  question  her  actions  or 
views." 

George  did  not  stop  over  this,  to  him, 
degeneracy  of  character  in  her,  but  went 
on.  "What  was  the  mere  peccadillo  of 
youth  to  my  absorbing  passion?  Why  did 
she  cast  me  off  like  a  soiled  coat  because  I 
was  not  the  ideal  man  she  had  dreamed? 
Other  women  were  fond  of  me ;  fortune 
sometimes  favored  me.  Yet  her  evil  spirit 
has  watched  every  turn  I  have  made,  rising 
like  a  ghost  in  my  heart.  She  dropped 
bitterness  into  every  glass.  Faith?  I  have 
no  faith  in  anything,  except  faith  in  the 
sense  that  she  pursues  me  always.  A  man 
must  obey  his  nature.  Her  laws  were  be- 
yond endurance.  She  was  a  goddess  in  my 

eyes,   and  might  have   lifted   me   to   any 
225 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

plane;  but  she  only  cared  for  her  own 
ideas  and  standards.  Die?  I  shall  drop 
dead  soon,  and  thank  the  hour  of  my  de- 
liverance." 

"There  must  have  been  some  deep  cause 
to  make  her  give  you  up,  for  you  know  in 
your  heart,  and  I  know,  that  she  is  as  true 
as  steel,  and  clean  as  fine  gold.  How  did 
it  come  about?  " 

"  Oh,  a  mere  nothing — more  her  imagi- 
nation. I  had  gone  off  with  some  other 
woman  for  a  time,  I  think  it  was.  An 
affair  of  the  moment.  It  was  nothing  else 
than  her  infernal  sensitiveness." 

"  Surely,  man,  that  was  cause  enough. 
If  there  is  no  faith,  and  loyalty,  and  trust, 
even  of  the  body,  then  there  would  be  no 
honor." 

The  eager,  devouring  smack  of  the  de- 
mon's jaws  went  on  unceasingly,  and  the 

victims  rushed  to  the  slaughter,  seemingly 
226 


DATMGHT 

without  motive  or  purpose  other  than  to 
gain  or  lose.  A  subdued  roar  grew  in  vol- 
ume, and  the  clicks  were  more  rapid  and 
joyful.  "A  panic  in  sugar,"  one  cried  as 
he  rushed  by  Cargen. 

"Ah  !  you  are  also  under  that  soft, 
unbreakable  spell  she  weaves,"  he  said, 
unheeding  the  disastrous  turn  the  market 
had  taken,  but  speaking  in  an  animated 
tone,  as  if  jealousy  had  roused  him.  "A 
rare  ethereal  goddess  she,  who  would  live 
on  air,  and  float  impersonally  among  the 
spheres.  We  live  on  the  earth,  not  in 
heaven,  as  I  have  learned." 

"  Can't  we  go  to  your  hoine?  "  I  asked 
him,  seeing  that  the  conversation  had  been 
*oo  much  for  him. 

"  This  is  my  home.  Home  is  the  price 
a  man  of  pleasure  pays  for  his  freedom. 
She  drove  me  out  of  all  else." 

"  Her   unselfishness    is   so  great,   there 
227 


REGRET    OF    SPRING 

must  have  been  some  strong  reason  for  her 
action,"  I  still  insisted. 

"  Don't  I  know  keenly  now,  and  have  I 
not  always  known  what  she  did  for  me? 
Have  not  her  fetters  of  obligation,  that 
became  unbearable,  always  tortured  me? 
Ah  !  they  have  been  my  ruin." 

"Your  life  here  must  have  hardened 
you,  so  that  she  knew  you  had  fallen  from 
a  high  estate,"  I  said  with  decision. 

"All  men  are  not  tempted  alike. 
Women,  and  even  the  men,  stared  at  me 
when  I  walked  the  street.  A  lady  of 
wealth  and  position  helped  me.  Could 
any  man  resist  such  attention?  What  do 
you  expect  a  young  man  to  do  when  pleas- 
ure opens  a  wide  door  and  welcomes  him? 
It  was  of  no  moment — a  passing  phase. 
My  soul  was  true  to  Elizabeth.  Why,  man  ! 
she  was  a  tigress  on  suspicion.  Before  I 
could  tell  her  the  story,  she  put  her 

223 


DAT  LIGHT 

own  stamp  upon  it.  Had  she  known  what 
real  love  is,  she  would  have  shut  her  eyes 
to  a  trifling  error  all  men  commit.  She 
might  have  saved  me  then,  might  have 
warded  off  the  disasters  which  have  fallen 
on  me." 

"  Would  you  come  home  to  her  now?" 
I  asked  him,  quietly — testing  whether  there 
was  any  truth  and  higher  manhood  left 
among  the  debris. 

"  No.  I  will  never  give  up  the  world 
for  a  cloister,  nor  sink  myself  in  the  val- 
ley of  repentance  and  say  prayers  to  a 
saint." 

He  was  a  victim  of  his  desires,  a  prey 
to  disease,  a  martyr  to  his  vanity.  The 
cruel  electric  light  seemed  to  lay  bare  his 
soul,  as  well  as  the  lines  and  scars  of  his 
countenance.  The  superstition  of  a  gam- 
bler, the  vices  of  a  roue,  and  the  motives 

of  a  savage  glared  from  these  seams  of  un- 
229 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

numbered  carousals.  Yet  the  outward  re- 
mains, the  cover  of  his  weak  nature,  were 
still  attractive  and  striking.  "  How  could 
I  take  this  wolf  into  a  sheep-fold?  " 

"How's  the  market?"  he  asked,  as  if 
closing  the  book  of  memory  and  turning 
to  his  daily  life  and  interest. 

"  Sugar,  49/2 ."  The  fateful  cry  seemed 
to  strike  his  ears  like  a  tocsin. 

Long  before  the  decline  had  reached 
this  "break" — strange  he  had  not  noted 
the  fall — our  $1,000  profit  and  fairy  vision 
of  $10,000  had  vanished  into  the  fields  of 
imagination  whence  it  had  so  suddenly 
sprung.  The  sound  of  the  "Caller's" 
voice,  the  buzz  and  roar  of  the  room  poured 
through  him  like  an  electric  shock.  The 
strain  had  been  too  great  for  him  to  bear. 

He  stared  fixedly  at  the  white  chalk 
marks  on  the  black,  unfathomable  "board, " 

looking     into     the     pit    of    destruction. 
230 


DAYLIGHT 

"  Panic  !  Sell  short !  "  he  cried,  huskily. 
"Panic,"  striving  to  hold  his  mastery  of 
himself  and  the  crowd.  His  voice  sud- 
denly stopped,  and  he  fell  to  the  floor, 
unconscious,  from  another  "  stroke." 


231 


III.— THE   PRODIGAL   SON 


OUT  of  compassion  or 
pity,  possibly  of  envy,  or  for 
Elizabeth's  sake,  I  buoyed 
him  back  to  life,  and  tried 
to  endue  him  with  some 
hope  of  the  future.  The  original 
warp  in  the  fabric  of  his  nature 
must  have  been  good  and  sound, 
or  she  could  never  have  loved 
and  been  true  to  him.  There 
might  still  be  left  in  his  charac- 
ter unrotted  strands  and  fibres  strong 
enough  to  hold  a  new  woof ;  although  the 
old  hung  in  frayed,  worn,  and  basely  soiled, 
colorless  threads — a  mass  of  rags  whose  des- 
tiny was  a  sewer  or  the  grave.  "  What's 
the  good?"  he  had  said.  "My  market 
233 


REGRET   OF  SPRING 

is  busted.  I've  played  my  game  and 
lost.  Let  me  pay  and  quit,"  a  spark  of 
honor  and  right  intent  flashing  from  the 
depths. 

The  flame  of  a  candle  flaring  and  sput- 
tering in  its  socket,  then  dying  to  an  ill- 
smelling  coal  at  the  tip  of  the  bit  of  wick, 
poorly  tells  the  story  of  the  proud  taper 
newly  lighted.  Whether  it  was  made  of 
paraffine  or  tallow  is  hardly  clear,  or,  at 
least,  of  little  moment  now.  Maybe  it  is 
the  better  part  to  stand  as  a  symbol  on  an 
altar,  rather  than  be  a  "  dip  "  guttered  by 
ill  winds;  yet  in  the  latter  case  there  are 
lights  as  well  as  shadows. 

George  seemed  to  be  sinking  and  flaring 
in  waves  to  the  end  of  his  life,  the  body 
rather  than  the  spirit  fighting  off  death.  I 
had  taken  charge  of  him  as  I  would  a 
brother,  and  had  carried  the  almost  inani- 
mate remains  to  his  room.  He  was  my 
234 


DAr 'LIGHT 

care  for  humanity's  sake;  he  had  no 
money,  no  friends — and  he  was  precious 
for  the  sake  of  the  woman  who  had  loved 
him.  I  must  do  all  in  my  power  to  bring 
him  to  her  alive,  lest  my  conscience  re- 
proach me. 

His  simple,  poor  room  was  neat  and 
clean,  evidently  by  the  hands  of  some 
woman  who  worshipped  him,  as  all  women 
did,  I  could  see,  from  maid  to  grand- 
mother, from  washerwoman  to  Elizabeth. 
There  were  no  signs  of  culture  or  taste,  or 
any  marks  to  show  his  leanings  or  character, 
to  be  found  in  the  room.  Pictures  or 
books  or  "  memories  "  or  color  or  feeling 
in  any  shape  or  form  did  not  seem  to  in- 
terest him.  There  was  not  even  pen  and 
ink  with  which  I  could  write  a  message  to 
her. 

As  soon  as  I  had  settled  and  cared  for 
him,  I  telegraphed  to  Elizabeth,  though 
235 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

not  until  after  much  doubt  and  temptation 
to  spare  her  until  the  end. 

I  sent,  "  Found  him.  He  is  quite  ill." 
She  as  laconically  answered,  "Shall  I 
come  ? ' ' 

"  As  you  please,"  to  which  there  was  no 
reply  from  her. 

The  prison-like,  solitary  room  and  the 
inability  to  feel  more  than  a  natural  sym- 
pathy for  a  stricken  human  creature,  gave 
me  long  hours  and  days  to  think  and  con- 
jecture over  what  she  would  do  if  he  lived, 
what  she  would  say  if  he  died.  A  sym- 
pathetic current  with  Elizabeth — brain 
waves — seemed  to  tell  me  her  thoughts  and 
her  feelings,  to  keep  me  in  touch  with  her. 
It  was  not  necessary  to  write  to  her  more 
than  the  actual  details  of  how  I  met  George 
by  accident;  that  he  had  been  stricken; 
that  I  watched  and  cared  for  him  with  all 

that  money  could  do.     t  merely  and  coldly 
236 


DAT  LIGHT 

wrote  these  facts  and  nothing  more.     She 
did  not  say  a  word. 

Yet  my  heart  complained  that  she  did 
not  speak  to  me,  thank  me,  or  tell  me 
how  she  felt — settle  the  mystery. 

When  he  was  somewhat  better  and  out  of 
danger,  he  grew  morose  and  silent.  He 
obstinately  refused  to  be  moved  to  my 
home,  where  he  could  have  care,  or  to  re- 
lieve me  of  the  nervous  duty  of  looking 
after  him.  I  was  no  nurse  and  did  not 
care  even  for  myself.  It  was  not  my  nature. 
Our  wills  clashed  fora  time,  but  I  humored 
him;  then  took  the  matter  into  my  own 
hands  and  carried  him  home. 

The  snow  lay  like  a  cloak  of  ermine  on 
the  old  garden,  sterile  and  cold — where  the 
pear  trees  protruded  their  black,  broken, 
decaying,  palsied  trunks  in  mockery  of 
life  and  spring — when  I  brought  George 
Cargen  back  to  Elizabeth. 
237 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

As  his  litter  drew  near  our  door,  I  trem- 
bled at  the  effect  it  might  have  upon  her. 
I  worried  at  the  fear  of  there  being  a  scene. 

"Is  that  you,  George?"  she  said  in  a 
cheerful  voice,  and  at  once  took  his  hand 
and  touched  his  hair  with  the  points  of  her 
fingers. 

"Yes!  my  old  sweetheart,"  he  replied, 
trying  to  laugh  in  answer  to  her  smile. 

I  was  relieved  at  the  quiet  of  the  meet- 
ing, and  satisfied  in  my  heart  with  one 
steady  bright  look  she  gave  me.  I  was 
pleased  at  her  courage  and  the  capacity 
she  at  once  showed  to  tend  and  care  for 
this  man. 

He  was  a  helpless,  childish  hulk,  whose 
memory  of  the  years  spent  away  from  her 
was  transient  and  flickering,  as  if  it  had 
been  an  episode  and  his  former  career  with 
Elizabeth  scarcely  broken. 

Youth  and  vigor  and  lightness  and  de- 
238 


DAT  LIGHT 

votedness  seemed  born  again  in  her  heart 
and  body.  From  a  silent,  quiet  woman, 
never  intruding,  she  became  busy  and  lo- 
quacious ;  she  made  a  great  ado  and  a  great 
fuss  over  the  invalid,  as  if  nothing  else 
existed  on  the  earth.  She  had  found  her 
sphere ;  she  was  a  nurse,  as  George  had 
characterized  her. 

The  self-satisfied,  joyful  air  with  which 
she  passed  me,  or  held  in  the  little  talks  we 
had,  gave  the  tone  of  a  judgment  perfectly 
contented  with  itself.  What  she  did  was 
in  her  eyes  wise  and  pleasing. 

A  certain  arrogance,  a  putting  of  me 
aside,  as  if  it  was  her  right  and  I  ought  to 
be  satisfied,  offended  me.  Between  us 
there  had  been  an  equality  and  a  complete 
sympathy ;  now  she  trod  a  new  path,  alone, 
and  seemed  delighted. 

Her  treatment  of  me,  her  feelings  towards 
me,  seemed  completely  altered;  although, 
239 


REGRET   OF   SPRING 

knowing  the  woman  as  I  did,  I  could  not 
feel  the  change  to  be  in  her  heart.  Women 
are  such  actors,  are  so  moved  by  surface 
currents,  take  so  seriously  what  the  next 
day  they  do  not  remember,  that  her  actions 
did  not  really  hurt  me.  At  times  I  laughed 
to  myself,  thinking  her  withdrawal  from 
me  only  one  of  her  usual  strange,  reserved 
moods. 

Possibly  my  dignity  and  tolerant  manner, 
which  naturally  would  come  to  a  man — 
certainly  he  would  not  whine  or  seek  pity 
like  a  house  dog — piqued  her.  It  was  her 
part  to  come  to  me,  not  mine  to  ask  pay. 

Of  course,  at  such  a  time,  there  is  no  field 
for  sentiment,  and  a  thousand  excuses  were 
thrust  forward  to  blind  me  or  enable  her  to 
escape  me.  I  waited — I  patiently  waited. 

Her  creed — that  men  must  and  could 
live  as  pure  as  women  do  or  be  unforgiven 

— was  hidden  under  the  mantle  of  charity 
240 


DAYLIGHT 

and  pity.  But  her  love  of  me?  What 
barrier  had  risen  between  us?  What  could 
it  be  that  kept  her  so  silent.  I  could  not 
see  her  alone,  no  matter  how  I  tried — 
could  get  no  word  of  her.  Yet  I  waited. 

While  the  period  of  uncertainty  lasted 
and  I  felt  all  would  soon  be  over  with 
George,  I  did  what  she  asked  and  smiled 
at  her.  Her  happiness  was  my  aim. 

When  he  grew  better  and  could  be  about 
his  room,  she  showed  no  desire  to  renew 
our  relations  or  to  give  me  the  touch  of 
sympathy.  Her  reply  was:  "  Don't!  I 
am  busy  now,"  only  an  excuse.  It  is  not 
for  me  to  analyze  or  explain  her  motives 
or  her  will. 

The  ability  to  know  what  women  mean, 
that  makes  for  peace  and  happiness.  The 
blind  fall  in  the  ditch. 


241 


IV.— REGRET 


SHE  not  only  welcomed  George 
back  with  joy,  but  she  took  him 
into  her  arms  as  if  he  were  a  babe 
in  his  purity.  Her  whole  nature 
was  poured  out  upon  him — ca- 
resses, expressions  of  love  ;  and,  I 
feared,  her  soul.  This  seemed  to 
me  the  breaking  of  a  long  pent 
dam  of  feeling  which  would  soon 
run  out.  Or  it  appeared  to  be 
the  motherly  instinct,  that  would 
pass  when  he  passed  away.  I  was  loyal 
and  did  not  waver,  though  sorely  tried. 

She  used  me  as  if  I  were  a  servant  or  a 

hired  nurse.     I  was  hers  body  and  purse — 

a  slave  without  her  having  a  thought  of  me. 

What    I    had   done,    where    I   had   gone, 

243 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

was  of  no  interest.  My  welfare  was  for- 
gotten. Bright  and  cheery,  she  tried  to 
joke  with  me  in  an  ordinary  way,  and 
talk  of  commonplace  matters — seriously, 
never. 

But  later  on,  as  he  lived  and  under  her 
care  promised  to  do  for  years,  a  wreck  who 
would  need  her  constant  and  undivided 
attention,  my  mind  changed. 

"Must  I  tell  all?"  as  she  once 
asked.  "  Must  I  abase  myself  still  far- 
ther? " 

She  welcomed  him  back  with  love  and 
joy — me,  she  forgot. 

Once  when  I  tried  to  find  her  soul,  she 
said,  almost  in  anger  :  "If  you  had  not 
asked  him  to  make  that  awful  speculation, 
he  would  not  have  been  brought  to  this 
plight." 

Beside  herself,  when  he  seemed  about  to 
244 


DAY 'LIGHT 

die  :   "  Did  you  selfishly  tempt  him  to  his 
destruction?  " 

If  he  had  died?  Then  she  would  have 
come  back  to  herself — to  me. 

The  passion  of  love  is  like  the  wind 
which  bloweth  where  it  listeth.  No  man 
can  foretell  its  going  or  coming.  It  is 
mortal  and  as  light  as  the  thistle-down. 

I  was  no  longer  jealous  of  the  kisses  and 
endearments  she  gave  George.  Youth 
went  from  me  forever — I  was  an  old  man. 

Her  soul,  her  immortal  love,  was  mine, 
and  no  power  of  another,  no  will  of  her 
own  could  part  the  immortal  union  of  our 
hearts.  He  was  her  idol,  her  old  relig- 
ion; he  was  clothed  with  the  garment  of 
her  imagination,  which  reality  would  yet 
tear  asunder. 

Perhaps  it  was  not  passion  which  ruled 
her,  but  rather  a  sense  of  loyalty  and  duty. 
245 


REGRET    OF   SPRING 

I  do  not  blame  her.  I  am  only  sorry. 
They  were  gone,  and  I  was  alone  once 
more. 

"Nevertheless,  recurrence  is  sure,"  in 
all  nature  and  life.  We  move  as  the  earth 
does  in  an  orbit  large  or  small — in  cycles. 
Elizabeth  will,  I  know,  idly  turn  the  ring 
on  her  finger,  round  and  round,  for  months, 
past  the  time  of  the  fruitless  pear  trees 
blooming — how  long? 

I  know,  I  am  sure,  that  spiritual  love  is 
immortal  and  that  natural  love  is  ephem- 
eral. Beyond  this  no  man  may  say. 


/v\ 


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